They grew up in farming villages—Teddy Chwanya in the rolling hills of western Kenya and Samuel Mathu amid the cattle and flower farms of the country’s lush central region.

Both men left home to take their chances in Nairobi, settling just a few blocks apart in Kangeme. They are in their early 30s now and making ends meet, Chwanya as a salesman for a security firm and Mathu running an electronics shop.

Aside from migration to the city, age and middle-class aspirations, though, the two have little in common. In the particulars of their lives, their perceptions and—especially now in the violent aftermath of a disputed presidential election—their politics, Chwanya and Mathu remain separated by one of the most volatile and enduring features of Kenyan society: tribalism.

“I am at a disadvantage because I’m Luo,” said Chwanya, a supporter of opposition leader Raila Odinga, a Luo who has accused President Mwai Kibaki of stealing the December 27 election.

That sentiment mystifies Mathu. He is a member of the Kikuyu, the president’s tribe and the nation’s largest. Although the Kikuyus have dominated Kenyan politics and commerce for more than 40 years, Mathu, like many Kikuyus, has never considered that an advantage. “We are all treated equally,” he said.

Tribe in Kenya is a matter of culture and tradition, a designation—often invisible to the casual observer—that defines social networks and political power. Kibaki claimed victory in the elections despite early returns showing a large lead for Odinga and his party.

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