Tony Okerafor
25 October 2009
analysis
December 27, this year, will mark the second anniversary of a very dark chapter, in fact, the darkest point, in the post-independence history of a country that once prided itself in being one of the most stable places on the African continent.
For many years, Kenya and its 47 million people have served as East Africa's economic power-house, a place most conducive for foreign investment in the region.
But, on the date in question, back in 2007, voters had filed out en masse to elect a new president. President Mwai Kibaki's first five-year term had come to an end, and the electorates were again being called out to choose the country's third chief executive since the end of the British rule in 1963.
The real turning-point in the whole saga came on December 31, but more so on January 1, 2008, when violence erupted, as thousands of angry mobs took to the streets of the capital, Nairobi, and other major cities, clubbing, slashing, fire-bombing and driving out other Kenyans.
The reason for the violent outburst lay in the outcome of the presidential election, as had been declared by the national election commission. Mwai Kibaki of the Party for National Unity, (PNU) according to the results, was adjudged to have defeated Raila Odinga, his former coalition partner, who fought the race under the banner of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
The brutal outpouring of anger, as far as many non-Kikuyus were concerned, was the only way they could respond to what they considered a stolen election. By the end of the first two months of 2008, 1,600 Kenyans perished, and another 650, 000 were forced to flee their homes for fear of being attacked and killed.
Some order was restored, when the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ghanaian-born Kofi Annan, was invited in to broker a peace deal between Mr. Kibaki, a member of the majority Kikuyu ethnic group, and the main opposition leader, Mr. Odinga, who comes from the minority Luo tribe. Odinga felt he had been robbed of the presidency by his arch-political enemy and former cabinet colleague.
The D-day happened to be February 28, 2008, the day both men signed the national accord, which ultimately paved the way for the creation of the grand coalition government. Importantly, the majority of Kenyans supported the accord, because they saw it as necessary to save their country from plunging further into the abyss of violence.
Mr. Annan and a group of eminent Africans had managed to drag the opposing sides to a position where they claimed they were willing to share power. While Mr. Kibaki was allowed to keep the presidency, the deal awarded the new job of executive prime minister to Mr. Odinga.
They had also agreed, both sided, to implement a huge programme of reforms, such as, addressing issues relating to the electoral process, ownership of land, the prosecution of people who took part in the orgy of violence, a new constitution, ethnic division in the country and the like.
Even at that point, and by Kofi Anna's own admission, it was clear that "A long road" lay ahead. Governance over the previous five years and even further down the Kenyatta and Arap Moi eras, had lost a good deal of public confidence.
But, the moment in question, February 28, last year, was simply historic, so much so that public scepticsim about the coalition government, already the largest administration in the history of the country, was overriden, initially, by the feeling that the discredited politicians had no option other than to make peace and enthrone radical changes.
The high sense of optimism bordered, to a large extent, on agenda four of the peace deal, which provided the ground rules for reforms.
Would it be implemented with the kind of momentum generated by the renewed optimism? After all, Kenya, only weeks before, was at the point of collapse.
Nowadays, however, that sense of optimism has largely disappeared twenty months after Mr. Annan and his colleagues oversaw the signing of the agreement between Kibakai and Odinga, the unity government between the PNU and ODM seems united only because there is no other way open to them to remain in power. In fact, the reform process is in limbo.
Have those expectations and high hopes expressed back in February and March, 2008, been unrealistic? Could it be that Kenyans should have looked beyond just reforming the political system of their country; to include what one prominent Kenyan politician has called "revolution", in order to reverse the "deeply entrenched, anti-democratic, anti national and opaque political system" that has characterized life since independence?
Defending itself on the question of slow reform, the unity government claims the process is complicated and cannot be hurried. Officials have been coming out to boast of an "impressive start", pointing to the appointment of a new election commission and a new chief of police, after the previous occupant of the job was heavily criticized locally and internationally.
While critics of the government admit that appointing a new election commission may have been a positive development, they have, however, refused to give the commission any passmark, not least over its handling of the two bye-elections that have been conducted n the west of the country since the signing of the national accord.
They point to cases where the commission literally turned a blind eye to numerous incidents of bribery, as well as other forms corruption in the electoral process in the districts in question.
They also complain that beyond the removal of the previous commissioner of police in order to placate widespread criticism, the unity government has done little, if anything at all, to begin bringing about a change in the structure, character, nature or working of public policing in Kenya, with several well-founded charges of torture, bribery and summary executions leveled against members of the Kenyan Police Force. Critics of the government say nothing has been done in terms of making the institution more responsive, in order to be able to meet the requirement of democratic policing.
In response to what some are labeling "reluctance of the unity government to proceed with reform", the international community has decided to pile on the pressure. For instance, the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) has reacted to the government's failure or unwillingness to set up an indigenous tribunal to try these who committed and orchestrated the post-election violence. The ICC has promised o pursue the alleged perpetrators on its own.
As for the United States, whose president, Barrack Obama, is a cousin of Mr. Odinga, the government there has written to some 15 senior, unidentified Kenyan political figures and warned them: namely, that if they don't begin to take reform seriously, then, they will suffer the consequences, including travel bans and targeted financial sanctions. The Americans and others say they are concerned that if no real progress is made towards reform, the likelihood of another major crisis erupting in 2012 will be high.
Already, nearly two years have been lost, and the reason why the paralysis is alarming people is that the next elections are due in another three year-plus, in 2012 to be precise. The uncertainty is palpable, analysts say, because the process of building, or is it "re-building, a national confidence has become the worse for it, as the elections draw nearer and nearer.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Champion. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
