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Using Puppets to Battle Kenya Corruption
Published by BBC News: July 7, 2009
By Will Ross
Behind the scenes on the XYZ Show set. Photograph courtesy of the XYZ Show.
At a recent prayer breakfast in Kenya, religious matters were pushed aside and instead gluttony was the order of the day.
President Mwai Kibaki struggled to eat a whole chapatti in one go, Prime Minister Raila Odinga spilt tea down his suit and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka struggled after getting a sausage stuck in his mouth.
Luckily, these were just puppets being filmed in the cramped dining room of a Nairobi home for the latest of 13 episodes of the XYZ show.
The satirical puppet show, which was influenced by the British 1980s show Spitting Image and France's Les Guignols, is a chance for a group of scriptwriters and puppeteers to delve into the murky world of Kenyan politics...
Kenya's XYZ Show has been in the pipeline since 2002 but was recently given a financial leg-up when several embassies and the Ford Foundation came forward to support it.
Projects that might help keep the politicians under scrutiny and promote democracy and accountability are seen by donors as worth sponsoring.
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