Toi Market was always busiest in the evenings, the pathways between the cramped market stalls were  crowded, packed with people on their way home to Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum. Colorful swaths of fabric, beans, lentils, second-hand cell phones, soap, dishware, shoes—all were crammed into the little tin stalls.

The smell was assaultive—the smoky whiffs of frying fish against the constant stench of urine from the streams of dirty water running along the paths—but the atmosphere was affable with benga music pouring from many of the stalls and women chattering with the news of the day.

A year later, the market is gone, burned to the ground in the violence that followed Kenya’s December election. January photos of the aftermath of the violence showed the market as twisted metal remains amidst smoldering ashes.

The violence, mainly between Kikuyu and Luo tribal factions, came after the leading opposition party and its Luo candidate, Raila Odinga, accused the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, of rigging the election. More than 1,500 people were killed and more than half a million were displaced.

It might be easy to classify the clashes in Kenya as just another case of ethnic violence, and indeed, ethnic tensions within the country have been rising in recent years, but the causes of the most recent violence remain rooted in the colonial legacy.

The British colonial administration may have left Kenya more than four decades ago, but its effects are far from gone. The British government kindled distrust and created divisions between tribes as a tactic to prevent a unified uprising by its colonial subjects. The ethnic divisions created under colonization persist today, thriving off of corruption and favoritism.

A geographically and socially diverse expanse of land, the geo-political borders of Kenya include 40 different ethnic groups. Political favoritism ran rampant under colonial rule, with the administration giving land and power to its loyalists while oppressing dissenters, sometimes brutally. Little changed following independence, with cronyism shifting from colonial administration to the government.

In recent years, bloody clashes in the north of the Rift Valley have mainly stemmed from land disputes, according to reports in The Standard and The Nation, Kenya’s leading newspapers. The white sons of British settlers still own great stretches of the country’s most fertile land, while political elites, like President Kibaki and his two predecessors, are among the biggest landholders.

While the land ownership issue might most easily depict the disparities in Kenya, development across the country also highlights problems of tribal favoritism. The Luo village of Kendu Bay, where I lived for part of my stay in Kenya, even lacked electricity despite being a crossroad junction. Only 80 miles north, the city of Eldoret enjoyed modern amenities including one of the country’s best hospitals, a major university, and an international airport, thanks to favoritism by former president Daniel Arap Moi.

Regardless of a peace agreement and pledges by both candidates for collaboration, it seems unlikely that peace will be lasting unless Kenya can move beyond ethnic favoritism.