The charts that show Kenya's Economy after four years of Jubilee government

In less than a month, Kenya’s Jubilee party will bid for a second term in office after ruling East Africa’s biggest economy since 2013.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is seeking a renewed mandate to see off a challenge from former Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Jubilee has promised to boost investment in public infrastructure and technology to transform Kenya into a middle-income nation, and the five-party opposition coalition pledged possible tax cuts to woo foreign capital.

Whoever wins the Aug. 8 vote will take charge of an agriculture-dependent country that avoided much of the recent downturn that caused the continent’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, to contract. They will also face the challenge of ballooning debt, inflation exceeding its target band and shrinking exports.

Kenya’s government debt has surged to more than 50 percent of gross domestic product from less than 40 percent eight years ago as the government borrowed to plug a budget deficit that widened to a revised estimate of 10.2 percent of GDP in 2016-17. Half of the debt is owed to external creditors. While the Treasury forecast the shortfall may narrow to between 6 percent and 6.5 percent this fiscal year, the nation must monitor its debt sustainability, according to the International Monetary Fund.

“It’s important they return to fiscal consolidation as that will reduce pressure on rates on domestic financial markets,” Armando Morales, the lender’s resident representative in Kenya, said in a July 10 phone interview.

Kenya’s farming industry contributes about 30 percent of gross domestic product and that has helped the economy to avoid much of the fallout of the drop in global mineral and oil prices since 2014. However, the worst drought in three decades has curbed agriculture output and is weighing on economic growth. Kenya’s GDP expanded at the slowest pace in three years in the first quarter after agriculture contracted for the first time since 2009.

“The president and his Jubilee coalition will get some reprieve as the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics will not release estimates for the second quarter until after the election,” Ahmed Salim, Dubai-based vice president at Teneo Intelligence, said in an emailed note earlier this month. The first-quarter “GDP figures will undoubtedly support the opposition’s narrative that the government’s policies have not benefited the average Kenyan,” he said.

Kenya’s inflation rate is at the highest in five years as the drought pushed up the costs of the staple corn. The central bank left its key policy rate unchanged at 10 percent on Monday and said price growth would slow over the next few months as food and fuel costs decrease.

The central bank’s “decision to keep its key rate on hold signals its willingness to look through the current period of above-target inflation,” Capital Economics Ltd. said in an emailed note. “With inflation having now peaked, we expect that the next move will be a cut.”

Kenya’s export growth contracted year-on-year for 23 of the 48 months to April, even as the shilling weakened 19 percent against the dollar over the period. The nation’s shipments have been affected by the drought as Kenya is the world’s biggest exporter of black tea and supplies about a third of the flowers sold in the European Union.

The government plans to remove all non-tariff barriers on exports as it seeks to grow the shipments of goods, the Trade Ministry said earlier this month. The nation will begin early oil exports after legislation to govern the industry is passed by lawmakers chosen in the elections, the Energy Ministry said in June.