Divergent politico-legal responses to past presidential corruption in Zambia and Kenya: catching the ‘big fish’, or letting him off the hook?

The prosecution of past elected presidents for corruption in office is an option that has recently entered the public discourse in several of Africa's nascent democracies, progressing farthest in Zambia, followed by Kenya. That such moves could be contemplated, let alone initiated, responds to frequent policy demands to ‘do something about corruption’. Moreover, prosecution poses a challenge to the scholarly literature on neo-patrimonialism, which suggests that presidential corruption is endemic—indeed, expected—in Africa because it is culturally embedded; in this view, societal clients habitually defer to their ‘big men’ patrons, a culture of impunity prevails, and prosecution is therefore inconceivable. This research suggests that new norms and mechanisms of accountability emerge from targeting ‘the big fish’ through presidential prosecution. Nonetheless, the constraints on such bold action in fragile African democracies remain severe. This article seeks to explain why prosecution was pursued in Zambia, but appears to have languished in Kenya, despite a number of initial similarities between the two states.