Paper long abstract

In the emergence of nationalist politics in colonial Kenya between the mid-1950s and independence in 1963, Nairobi was the home of the Legislative Council and the base for party organization. This paper begins by considering the urban influences upon the formation of KANU and KADU, Kenya’s first two national political parties, and then goes on to examine the subsequent political life of the Nairobi electorate over nearly half a century. The voting patterns of this urban electorate will be reviewed, spanning the elections of 1962 to 2002, but with emphasis upon the crucial decade immediately following independence.