Kenya &apos;s frustrated election . the Lancaster House conference on Kenya , held in January and February 1960 , opened the way to an African government . although there was no provision for a Chief Minister in the new constitution , it did concede an effective African majority in the legislative council by the establishment of the first open seats on a wide common roll franchise : there were to be thirty-three of them , against twenty seats reserved for the minorities , Europeans , Asians , and Arabs . besides this , Africans would form for the first time the largest unofficial group in the council of Ministers . rumour had it then in Nairobi that Africans were being granted independence ; from then on Uhuru ( Swahili : freedom ) became the slogan of African politics . later , 1 March 1961 , the day subsequently fixed for the announcement of the poll in the forthcoming elections , was regarded by many as the day on which this would come . in consequence , the twelve months following the Lancaster House conference was a period of excitement mounting into the election campaign of early 1961 and culminating in the elections which took place between 20 and 27 February . for the European settler community , on the other hand , Lancaster House was the final shattering of the dream of the white colony to which they had been encouraged to come from the beginning of the century by successive British governments and governors of Kenya . to them the conference was a betrayal of hopes , as also of their constructive work in Kenya . thus one settler cast thirty pieces of silver before the European leader Michael Blundell on his return from the conference , though this provoked Africans to cry : Mr Blundell , we will vote for you , if necessary . could Africans now exploit their success ? for this , as many saw , unity was essential . in May 1960 the Kenya African national union ( KANU ) was established , proclaiming by its title both descent from the proscribed Kenya African union which Kenyatta had led , and also comparison with the Tanganyika African national union ; it set out to be the monolithic structure seen as essential in the fight for independence , from India to Ghana . curiously , in Kenya , where there was the struggle not only against colonial rule but also against settler domination , this unity soon dissolved . there were three main reasons for this . the new party was soon regarded as the construction of two tribes , the Kikuyu and the Luo , the largest and most densely populated of the agricultural tribes . Cain &apos;s actions aroused the fears of Abel : the tribes of pastoralist tradition drew together to defend themselves , forming first the Masai united front and the Kalenjin political alliance . then these two bodies came together with associations of some of the smaller agricultural tribes to form the Kenya African democratic union ( KADU ) . the third word of its title indicated a rejection of the monolithic structure of the nationalist party and an assertion that this would be a party considering and accommodating diverse interests . inherent in the party &apos;s formation was , too , a dislike of many of its leaders for Tom Mboya , the Kenya African leader best known - apart from Kenyatta - in Britain and America . however , the financial support he had raised there for scholarships to send students to America and for his trade union activities had roused fears and jealousies among other leaders . these found expression at the end of the Lancaster House conference : Ngala and Muliro , later the two leading figures in KADU , expressed in a press conference their disapproval of the way in which Mboya had been accepted by the British press and television as the leader of the African delegation when he was only its secretary . after the return to Kenya , a deliberate attempt was made by some of the African leaders to shut Mboya completely out of the formation of new parties . whilst this African political activity went on , the minorities were considering their position . Sir Ferdinand Cavendish-Bentinck resigned as Speaker of the legislative council to defend , as he said , the interests of those whom he had encouraged over the years to settle in Kenya in reliance on the promises of successive British governments . he formed the Kenya coalition , a movement , as he called it , to appeal first to the Europeans but then to the minorities generally . unfortunately for this , Sir Ferdinand , the leader of European opinion in the &apos;thirties and &apos;forties , was regarded by the Asians as an old opponent . he and the coalition made no appeal to them or to the smaller African tribes , who preferred to form their own union , KADU , and to work in the new framework of African politics . they were ready to contest the new open seats , in the formation of which they had certainly been favoured . the new constituencies were drawn up by a Kenya government working party composed of the Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General . although the pastoralists formed only 10 per cent of the population , six of the thirty-three seats were allotted to their areas , and fifteen to the 60 per cent of the population represented by KANU-tribes ( Kikuyu , Embu , Meru , Luo , Kamba , and Kisii ) . the disproportion is most starkly seen in the allocation of two seats to the Masai and four to the Kikuyu , with populations respectively of 60,288 and 1,026,341 ( 1948 census , the latest available ) ; was this the traditional administrator &apos;s favouring of the noble Masai and another punishment of the rebellious Kikuyu ? if the latter , it may be observed that the Luo , with 757,043 ( 1948 ) , received only three seats , one more than the Masai . yet when the working party report was debated in the legislative council the African elected members made little comment . indeed the Chief Secretary , in introducing the report , placed them on the defensive by saying that if more seats were claimed in any one area they would have to be taken away from another . tribal jealousies prevented any effective reply . as 1960 went on , the events of the Congo increased profoundly the fears among the minorities of Kenya for their future an independent African government . the flight of capital , at the rate of &amp;pound;1 million a month since the Lancaster House conference , continued so steadily that in September KANU leaders - the president , Gichuru , and secretary , Mboya - sought to reassure foreign investors by moderate statements in Britain and elsewhere in Europe . even there they remained firm on one point : Kenyatta , regarded by Kenya Africans as the father of their nationalism , must be released . to Europeans , government officials and settlers alike , Kenyatta was , as the governor described him , a leader to darkness and death . here there was no basis for a meeting between the governor and KANU , a situation which became worse in the pressures of the election campaign . the original moderation of KANU &apos;s election manifesto , particularly with regard to land , was overthrown under the pressure of a more extreme nationalist opinion . Gichuru was reported as saying to a KANU meeting in November : after Uhuru Europeans and Asians will kneel to us . moderation may be possible for Kenya leaders in Britain but not in Kenya ; this was now no less true of Africans than it had been of Europeans in the past . effective leadership in KANU was passing to the more extreme Oginga Odinga , the Luo who , since 1958 , had taken the lead in the acceptance of Kenyatta and in the demand for his release . Odinga became even less popular with the administration when in August-September 1960 he went off on a visit behind the iron curtain , returning with favourable impressions of Chinese methods . whether he had become a communist rather than a Luo tribal nationalist is debatable , but certainly he had much money which made him a formidable figure in the coming election campaign , though he told the legislative council he had received this from friends in Britain . his return imported the politics of the cold war into KANU , for Odinga and Mboya were soon being attacked as stooges of , respectively , Sino-Soviet and American imperialism . it was not long before the leaders &apos; quarrels reached down to infect and divide the branches of KANU across the country . the party resembled in no respect the monolithic organization it had set out to be . these quarrels , the apparent link of Odinga with communism , and the naturally outspoken remarks of an election campaign served in no way to allay European fears . indeed they made more difficult the task of Michael Blundell &apos;s new Kenya party , which sought to persuade the Europeans that it was possible to work with Africans , that there was a future for them in co-operation in an independent Kenya . the party had originated in the legislative council in 1959 as the new Kenya group , with a multi-racial membership . now , faced with the need to appeal to their own communities , the group &apos;s Asian and African members had refused to stand under such a multi-racial banner . the Europeans of the group found themselves left alone to appeal to their own electorate under the name of the new Kenya party . at Lancaster House the Europeans had insisted that they would not have the system of common roll elections adopted in Tanganyika , but that candidates should first show some basis of support in their own community by a primary election . the working party fixed 25 per cent of the votes as the qualifying figure to be obtained before proceeding to the common roll . the Europeans clearly showed what they thought of the possibilities of racial co-operation : three of the N.K.P. &apos;s candidates failed to obtain the necessary 25 per cent , whilst their leader only scraped through with 26.7 per cent . Blundell &apos;s image had been successfully projected by the coalition as that of a man of many voices &amp;hellip; a politician , whom it was not possible to trust . on the announcement of the primary results Sir Ferdinand Cavendish-Bentinck could justifiably claim an outstanding triumph , but this was only the first stage of the election . the principle of Kenya &apos;s new constitution established at Lancaster House was the common roll , so it would be the mass African vote that would prove decisive . would Sir Ferdinand &apos;s be a Pyrrhic victory ? any doubts appeared to be set at rest when leaders of both KANU and KADU refused to meet him when he invited them for discussions saying they should respect European wishes to build confidence . instead , his approaches were rejected with contumely , Cavendish-Bentinck being called for his pains a European tribalist . then began the most interesting stage of the election as the two European leaders , Blundell and Cavendish-Bentinck , competed for African votes . both the African parties proclaimed support for Blundell , and KANU &apos;s president , Gichuru , spoke on his behalf . yet the division in KANU became evident here too . Odinga announced that KANU &apos;s governing council had not been consulted and that he would support Cavendish-Bentinck , saying : at least with Sir Ferdinand Cavendish-Bentinck we know where we stand . Mr Blundell gets his support from the colonial office &amp;hellip; . better the enemy you know than the one you do not . in the end the intervention of Odinga &apos;s supporters had little effect ; Blundell was returned with overwhelming African support . back went with him into the legislative council , on the support of the African vote , all his surviving candidates from the primary stage , except one who appears to have been so discouraged by only narrowly scraping by ( with 28.01 per cent ) that he had ceased to campaign . the European feeling against Blundell was such that he almost went into hiding for some days after the election , not daring to visit leading European clubs ; in one of them a leading supporter was then assaulted , as he himself had been during the campaign . in the open seats there were few real surprises . the pattern of Kenya African politics was that of one-party tribes . since individual tribes were committed to either KANU or KADU , all that remained of any real interest was whether the official party candidates or the party-independents would win . as these latter were allowed by their respective parties to join their parliamentary groups after the election , the relationship of party to seats which had been forecast was almost exactly fulfilled : 19 KANU , 11 KADU , and 3 independents . 