Posted by Jennie Duck. The images broadcast from Kenya over the New Year period showed a horrific and sad turn of events. The elections had been peacefully and democratically held, but unfortunately the public reaction to how the result was handled was neither peaceful nor democratic.

It certainly seems that President Kibaki rigged the election, and that his behaviour afterwards was that of a dictator - swearing himself in and then keeping silent as there was chaos across his country with people dying, killing, burning and looting.

There are a few things to bear in mind, however, when absorbing this information. One is that Kibaki is not the sole cause of the reaction - his opponent, Raila, has a long history of having a slightly vicious streak, with revolutionary ideals and his campaign to run a Majambo form of government described by commentators as a good theoretical concept -redistribution of land and wealth to lift poor out of poverty, and a devolution of power from the central government to operate on a much more local level- but in practice it equates ethnic cleansing.

Raila is a great politician in so much as he knows well and good how to rally a crowd, to gain popularity, to say the right things and get himself heard. And in the post-election international media coverage it seems that he's coming out as the good guy, the victim who had his plans for a better Kenya stolen from him.

But the politicians are not the victims in all of this. At the end of the day they are comfortable, they are secure and they can walk away.

Kenya is a victim, and the people of Kenya are victims. It's so easy to see this as yet another African mess - corruption and violence in Africa is often in the headlines, we almost expect it. But Kenya was, and still is, a good example of a strengthening African country, developing and prospering in many ways, with a 6% growth in the economy over the past year and ongoing development and improvement of infrastructure.

The violence we have seen in the media here is a very specific part of the reaction. Kenya is a country of 36million people where an estimated 600 have been killed since the elections at the end of December. Of course that's 600 too many, but that figure shows that it is a definite minority who are carrying out these killings - 1 in approx 50,000 people. And this has all been in very specific areas, like Kibera in Nairobi where 1,000,000 people live within 1 square mile.

So what about all the millions of other people who have not participated in this violent reaction? If we pinpoint the ones who did, the majority were slum dwellers who live on less than $2 per day - desperate people who had their hopes pinned on Raila's promises of re-distribution of wealth so that they may be lifted out of poverty. And the majority of these still wanted to demonstrate peacefully. We've all seen how mob culture can give a bad image to crowds - football hooligans are a prime example; a handful of thugs who can cause a lot of damage to people, property and reputation.

The same has happened in Kenya - a few people of a section of society have gone too far, in desperation with a dynamic politician hyping them up, and caused dangerous damage.

Kenya has a burgeoning middle class - an educated and prospering society of people in business, media, education, arts etc. It is doubtful if any of these were involved in the clashes at all - most stayed locked in their houses while the streets were full then were keen to get back to work after a few days of disruption.

Of course many of this civil society would have been disappointed and frustrated by the result of the election, and even more so by the way in which it was handled. But their reaction was very different - These people are above the poverty trap and have something to lose by getting involved with this kind of protesting. This is also the society which drives the development of Kenya - the people who are investing in the country, arguably in a more effective way than the government.

Imagine if everybody in Kenya had something to lose - what would have been the reaction then? People don't generally want to die, and if they have a tangible future then that is something to value and hang on to.

Our foundation philosophy is based on building individuals - encouraging education, self respect, independence. The more people who achieve these aspects the less likely Kenya is to face such horror again.

These events have been a blow to Kenya - international reputation will suffer as will the economy with a predicted decline in tourism , Kenya's largest growing industry.

There will now be a humanitarian reaction to deal with the many displaced people around Nairobi and through the Rift Valley to Western Kenya. A typical aid situation will be employed by organisations like the Red Cross and Oxfam.

This needs to be backed up with consideration of the long term future. The dynamic and affluent middle class needs to get engaged and to help more of the lower classes lift themselves out of poverty. This is already happening with examples such as a peace concert being held this coming weekend. There are also smaller scale positives such as the local media who are looking for positives to focus on.

The goals of the foundation to promote individual development and create economic opportunities seem even more relevant now. This will surely help more people get to a level where they are independent and not so desperate that human life lacks value.

It is also important to remember that Africa is not the only place where politicians can be corrupt - we can claim the same here in the UK, Italy has been practically under dictatorship for a number of years now, Bush's re-election was certainly dubious...these are all developed Western countries that we rarely tarnish with quite the same dirty brush we do developing African countries.