Editing Kenya African National Union (section)

===Origins and Kenyatta===
The [[Kenya African Union]] was a political organization formed in 1944 to articulate Kenyan grievances against the British colonial administration. The KAU attempted to be more inclusive than the [[Kikuyu Central Association]] by recruiting membership across the colony of Kenya.

From October 1952 to December 1959, Kenya was under a state of emergency arising from the armed [[Mau Mau rebellion]] against British colonial rule. What prompted the imposition of the state of emergency, by sir Evelyn Baring, was the assassination of one Chief Waruhiu who was an alleged British informer among many other reasons. KAU, the national political movement for Africans was banned in 1952 and its leaders including [[Jomo Kenyatta]] imprisoned in 1953.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu|title=African Tribalism, African Socialism and the Goal of Political Democracy in Kenya pg 69|access-date=18 November 2018}}</ref> Kikuyu, Embu and Meru political involvement was restricted heavily in this period in response to the insurrection. During this period however, African participation in the political process increased rapidly throughout the colony of Kenya. Starting in 1954 the colonial government started to actively promote regional tribal based political parties led by leaders friendly to the colonial government.<ref name="auto1"/> The colonial government governor then appointed these leaders of the tribal parties to the Legislative Council in 1956. Ronald Ngala was appointed to represent the Coast region, Daniel Moi was appointed to represent Rift Valley, Masinde Muliro was appointed to represent Western while Argwings Kodhek was appointed to represent Nairobi while Oginga Odinga became the Nyanza LegCo member. Jeremiah James Nyaga was appointed to represent Central Kenya. A ban on nationalist political parties however remained in force in Kenya until 1960.<ref name="auto">{{cite web|url=https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu|title=African Tribalism, African Socialism and the Goal of Political Democracy in Kenya pg 65|access-date=18 November 2018}}</ref>

The first direct elections for Africans to the Legislative Council took place in 1957. The majority of the 'moderate' and friendly leaders appointed to the Council by the colonial government were re-elected to the Council in 1957. The only exception was [[Tom Mboya]], who ran as an independent and defeated Argwings Kodhek, who had been appointed by the colonial government to represent Nairobi in 1956.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu|title=African Tribalism, African Socialism and the Goal of Political Democracy in Kenya pg 65-71|access-date=18 November 2018}}</ref>

The ban for national political movements was lifted in 1960. On 14 May 1960, KAU (having been resurrected by James Gichuru) merged with [[Tom Mboya]]'s  [[Kenya Independence Movement]] and the [[Nairobi People’s Convention Party|Nairobi People's Convention Party]] to form the Kenya African National Union (KANU) with Tom Mboya as its first secretary general and James Gichuru as KANU chairman. Oginga Odinga was the KANU first vice chairman.

The [[Kenya African Democratic Union]] (KADU) was founded in 1960, to challenge KANU. KADU's aim was to defend the interests of the tribes so-called KAMATUSA (an acronym for [[Kalenjin people|Kalenjin]], [[Maasai people|Maasai]], [[Turkana people|Turkana]] and [[Samburu people|Samburu]]) as well as the European settler community, against the dominance of the larger [[Luo (Kenya)|Luo]] and [[Kikuyu people|Kĩkũyũ]] tribes that comprised the majority of KANU's membership (Kenyatta himself being a Kikuyu). KANU was in favour of immediate total independence, a new independence constitution and universal suffrage while KADU was supporting the continuation of the colonial political system established by the ''Lyttelton Constitution'' of 1954 with federalism (Majimbo) as KADU's key tenets.<ref name="auto"/> Despite the numerical advantage lying with the numerically stronger KANU, a form of Federalism involving Kenya's 8 provinces was adopted in Kenya's independence as a result of British colonial government supporting KADU's plan.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu|title=African Tribalism, African Socialism and the Goal of Political Democracy in Kenya pg 72|access-date=18 November 2018}}</ref> After independence KANU nonetheless decided to remove all provisions of a federal nature from the constitution.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/kanuyouthreloaded|title=Kanu Youthcongress Reloaded|website=www.facebook.com|access-date=5 April 2018}}</ref>

Kenyatta was released in 1961, and the KANU contested the [[1961 Kenyan general election]] (winning a plurality of the seats and 67.50% of the popular vote). Following the implementation of a new colonial constitution (the key feature of which were a bicameral legislature consisting of a 117-member House of Representatives and a 41-member Senate, and the elimination of reserved seats for ethnic minorities), the KANU contested and won a majority of the votes and seats in the [[1963 Kenyan general election]]. Kenya became independent on December 12, 1963. Jomo Kenyatta, head of the KANU, became Kenya's first prime minister.