Two years ago, Kenyans voted for a new leader who promised to end the deeply entrenched official corruption that has been destroying the country?s economy. President Daniel arap Moi, who ruled Kenya with an iron fist for 24 years while his cronies robbed the country, had just died, and in December 2002 Kenyans flocked to the polls to elect a man who seemed determined to root out the corruption : Mwai Kibaki. Unfortunately, Kibaki was just fooling. It seemed like a real chance for salvation at first, even though Kibaki, like Moi and Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya?s independence hero, was a Kikuyu.

The Kikuyu had dominated politics for so long not just because they were Kenya?s biggest tribe, but because they had borne the brunt of the independence struggle against Britain and paid the price. It gave them a sense of entitlement, and Kikuyu ministers had taken the lead in corruption. Yet Kenyans of every ethnic group trusted Kibaki enough to ignore his tribal allegiance and vote for him.

Kibaki began well. Petty corruption decreased sharply, and he appointed John Githongo, a respected former journalist who was the director of Transparency International?s Nairobi office, to wage war against high-level corruption as the country?s first Permanent Secretary for Ethics and Governance. The International Monetary Fund resumed lending money to Kenya after a four-year ban, and foreign donors, who had suspended the flow of aid to Kenya because so much of it was stolen, opened the taps again in late 2003.

The first public suggestion that things were going badly wrong came from the British ambassador, Sir Edward Clay, who accused Kibaki?s ministers last July of "arrogance, greed and perhaps a desperate sense of panic" which led them to "eat like gluttons" and "vomit on the shoes" of foreign donors and the Kenyan people. Harsh words, but they reflected the growing sense of dismay among ordinary Kenyans as they started to realise that they had been deceived and betrayed.

Kibaki?s anti-corruption crusade has not yet resulted in the conviction of a single senior political figure, and cynical deals between foreign businessmen and Kenyan officials -- kickbacks, padded invoices, every imaginable form of fraud -- are estimated by diplomats to have cost the country $1.1 billion in the past two years.

It costs Kenya even more than that, in fact, because the biggest foreign aid donors, the United States, Britain and Germany, have once again suspended their aid to the country in protest against the corruption.

What precipitated their action was John Githongo?s resignation on 9 February, just two years after he had taken on the job of anti-corruption tsar. He took the precaution of leaving the country before announcing that he was "no longer able to continue serving the government of Kenya :" he had opbviously realised that his task was hopeless.

At the same time Sir Edward Clay returned to the charge, claiming that the foreign associates of Moi?s corrupt regime were now cooperating regularly with officials of Kibaki?s government to steal public funds through crooked procurement deals : "We are not talking about minor corruption. We are talking about massive looting and/oe grand corruption which has a huge impact on Kenya?s economy." Kibaki?s government responded by attacking its critics.

A government spokesman branded Sir Edward "an incorrigible liar", and Lands Minister Amos Kimunya, a close associate of Kibaki?s, threatened to have the British ambassador arrested. Kumunya also declared that any civil servant who leaked information on corruption to the press or foreign diplomats would be charged with treason, a hanging offence.

And the long-suffering Kenyan public watches all this with anger. Kenya has been fortunate, compared to many other African countries : no mad dictators, no inter-tribal wars, and such a wealh of human and natural resources that even decades of corruption have not reduced it to utter penury. But at some point the patience of the people runs out, and that point may now be approaching. The trick will be to get Kibaki out without triggering violence that would do the country grave damage. Already Kibaki?s government is playing the anti-foreigner card, and it is starting to mobilise Kikuyu tribal loyalty in its defence as well. Bad times are coming to Kenya.