The high-level political stand-off has made itself felt at grassroots level, with fighting between supporters of the two factions.
On September 8, a crowd of young men disrupted a presidential function that was taking place in Nyanza, an opposition stronghold in western Kenya. They threw chairs and shoes at the stage where Kenyatta was sitting, forcing the event to be cut short.
Two weeks later, on September 22, pro- and anti-referendum supporters clashed during a political meeting in the Rift Valley. Scores of people were injured, including a senior county official.
The following day, at least six people were shot and injured in a clash between Jubilee and CORD supporters in Makueni County in eastern Kenya.
Civil society groups are urging politicians to refrain from using inflammatory language, arguing that this kind of rhetoric encourages people to attack their opponents.
“When you look at the political terrain, it’s not the citizens who fight each other, it’s the politicians,” Betty Okero of the Civil Society Network in the western of town of Kisumu said. “The citizens only rise to fight on behalf of their respective leaders. Therefore, to fight intolerance, it has to start with our leaders.”
Some officials like Alfred Mutua, governor of Machakos County, have hinted that politicians have deliberately incited their supporters to violence.
“There is too much destabilising politics that appears well coordinated,” he said in a social media post after the recent clashes. “We need to ask ourselves who are behind [it] all.”
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