Kenyan lessons in democracy

Aug 29, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

Kenya went to the polls on August 9 but the declared winner William Ruto has not been sworn in as yet as the declaration has been challenged in the Courts by his veteran rival Raila Odinga, who lost his fifth attempt at capturing the Presidency. Kenya, like Ghana and Guyana are very similar in our political challenges as ex-colonies of Britain that have attempted to institute parliamentary governance in our ethnically divided societies. Kenya has the “edge” over us with 42 tribes but with 8 dominant ones that act like our “ethnic groups”. Gaining Independence in 1963 under the legendary Jomo Kenyatta (from the Kikuyu tribe) as PM, Kenya slid into one-party rule before he died in office in 1978.

In 1966 Kenyatta’s Deputy, Oginga Odinga, quit the ruling KANU and politics became fractured since Odinga’s Luo supporters and MP’s rallied behind him when he launched the KPU. In our local politics, some have theorised that even if Jagan and Burnham had led us to independence together, our cleavages would have eventually manifested as in Kenya. They were transformed into a one-party state in 1969 when KPU was banned. KANU as the only party “won” all seats in 1969, 1974, 1979, 1983 and 1988 elections. After attending the 1970 Non-Aligned Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, Burnham visited several East African countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania where he must have been inspired to deepen his de-facto one-party rule in Guyana.

Kenyatta’s successor Moi, from a minority tribe, the Kalenjin, ruled with an iron fist until he was forced, as with Burnham’s successor Hoyte, to accept multi-party “free and fair” elections in 1992, following the end of the Cold War. And as in Guyana, the ethnic fissures again erupted in the mobilisation of votes. Moi won the 1992 and 1997 elections and groomed Jomo Kenyatta’s son Uhuru to take over the presidency. But when Moi stood down in 2002 for Uhuru Kenyatta to run, KANU was defeated by an opposition coalition led by Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu. Kenya had its first President from the Opposition. Oginga Odinga’s son, Raila who had lost in the 1997 elections was part of the coalition.

But after the coalition collapsed prior to the 2007 elections, Uhuru backed Kibaki (all Kikuyu) against Odinga (Luo). Following the latter’s defeat, Kenya suffered its worst outbreak of ethnic violence when some 1300 persons were killed and 600,000 displaced. After a 2008 National Accord and Reconciliation Act was passed and a temporary power sharing government between Kenyatta and Odinga was instituted, the constitution was drastically amended in 2010 to accommodate a welter of innovations. Many of these are presently being touted in Guyana by the Opposition to have a more “inclusive” government. Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto (from the third largest tribe the Kalenjin) were indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2011 for incitement of ethnic violence against Odinga’s supporter but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence. In the 2013 elections, Kenyatta defeated Raila Odinga, whose party won the most seats in the National Assembly.

In the 2017 elections, which Kenyatta and Ruto won, the complaints by Odinga had shifted to the validity and counting of the votes and following his petition, the Supreme Court voided the elections. The law had been changed to mandate that elections petitions had to be decided within 14 days and, if necessary, new elections be held in 60 days. After great confusion and several resignations in the Elections Commission, Odinga withdrew from the new elections in protest and Kenyatta was elected with 98 percent of the votes.

And this brings us to their August 9 elections. By then, Kenyatta had been barred from a third term and under the guise of “power sharing”, he brought in Odinga in an ostentatious “Building Bridges Initiative” signalled by a famous “handshake”. The estranged Ruto identified with ordinary Kenyans and ran as an outsider “hustler” against the “dynasties and won by a whisker. Odinga filed his objection and the court will rule within days. But whatever the decision, it is clear that sadly, “this will not end well”.

For Kenya and us, the aphorism of the architect of India’s constitution Ambedkar is salutary: “However good a Constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad.”

Sincerely,

Ravi Dev

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Kenyan lessons in democracy

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