NAIROBI: Winning Kenya’s general elections was the easy part for the opposition National Rainbow Coalition — bringing about change in the impoverished country is bound to prove a far greater challenge.

Provisional results available on Sunday indicate the Rainbow and its presidential candidate Mwai Kibaki are coming to power with a mandate for change from an overwhelming majority of Kenyans, desperate to reverse their country’s downward slide during Daniel arap Moi’s 24 years in power.

The simple fact that the opposition won Friday’s vote — and the ruling Kenya African National Union did not rig it — brings a sense of relief to citizens and boosts their hopes the future, said Jeremiah Owiti of the Nairobi-based Institute for Policy Analysis and Research.

Kenya’s economic growth has failed to keep pace with population growth for the past five years. Once on an economic par with Singapore, Kenya has seen its jobs disappear, its infrastructure crumble and its public funds siphoned off by corruption.

“We have a real opportunity with a new government of getting institutions to function once again,” said David Makali, director of Kenya’s Media Institute.

“There is at last the prospect the government will work, the prospect of a reduction in corruption and nepotism, the prospect of better economic management,” Makali said.

During the campaign, Kibaki and Rainbow pledged to revive the stagnant economy, create jobs, clean up corruption and provide free education, promises that Kenyans would love to see fulfilled.

“People want a change. People want to see a break with the past, with how things have been done,” said sociology professor Paul Achola of Kenyatta University.

But Achola said it’s “debatable” how much change Kibaki and his party will be able to bring. The economy remains dominated by subsistence farming, Kenya’s main export commodities are suffering from low prices, and a growing proportion of the adult workforce is succumbing to AIDS.

Rainbow — also known by the acronym NARC — is truly a coalition, made up of 11 parties which agreed to put aside their differences to unite behind Kibaki and field a single candidate in each of the country’s 210 constituencies.

The strategy worked. But the individual parties who forged the alliance each tend to draw their support from specific ethnic groups. As Kibaki makes his cabinet appointments, the parties will be watching closely to ensure that each gets their share of power.—dpa