Kenya's brand new day: after 24 stifling years under an autocratic leader, Kenyans have elected a new President who promises reform. The move toward democracy could set an example for several other African nations.

• Author: Lacey, Marc

NAIROBI, Kenya--A Kenyan police officer stopped a minibus full of passengers the other day and demanded a bribe from the driver, which is rather routine behavior in Kenya. But what happened next is completely new: The passengers poured out of the minibus and snatched the money back from the officer. They told him that corruption is no longer permitted in Kenya.

That attitude reflects the forces that recently elected a new, reform-minded government. For 24 years, this nation of 31 million people in East Africa had known only one President, Daniel arap Moi. His face is on Kenya's money. His photograph hung in every shop. There are Moi schools and Moi airports and Moi avenues.

But despite his presence everywhere, the dictatorial Moi had become extremely unpopular. Kenya's economy is in such dismal shape that most people get by on less than a dollar a day. Its roads are just as bad, with potholes so deep they tear up the bottoms of cars. From police officers to top political officials, corruption has been commonplace. When the constitution forced the 78-year-old Moi to retire at the end of last year, he tried to choose the man he wanted to replace him from the Kenya Africa National Union party, which had dominated the country since it gained independence in 1963. But Kenyans turned instead to an alliance of opposition groups called the National Rainbow Coalition, and a new President, Mwai Kibaki, to revive their country.

Yet the biggest change in Kenya since the election may be in the attitude of the people themselves. After years of feeling powerless, Kibaki's victory over Uhuru Kenyatta, who was Moi's chosen successor, has given ordinary people the sense that they are the ones in control. They danced in the streets after Kibaki won. And now they have begun to tell police officers and other corrupt officials that the old days are over.

"People feel empowered," says John Githongo, an anticorruption activist with Transparency International, an organization that is urging more Kenyans to fight bribery demands by government officials. "Ordinary people are saying they've had enough of corruption."

AN AFRICAN RIPPLE EFFECT?

The political change in Kenya is also causing excitement across Africa, which has more than 50 countries, many of which are in even more desperate shape than Kenya. There are dictatorships, where the people have no say at all, and economies so puny that most of the population struggles to survive. The people of Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, and Sudan have known far more war than peace over the past few decades. Somalia does not have any government at all. Togo's president, who has served longer than any other ruler in Africa...