From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Feb 17 2010 - 08:59:55 EST
The Big Question: What's gone wrong in Kenya, and is the peace deal
unravelling?
By Daniel Howden, Africa Correspondent
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Q: Why are we asking this now?
Kenya's President, Mwai Kibaki, and Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, have had a
very public falling out over the latter's attempt to suspend two cabinet
ministers suspected of involvement in serious corruption. The duelling
partners in Kenya's peculiar power-sharing government have been squabbling
nearly constantly since their shotgun marriage in early 2008. The newspapers
in Nairobi chart the daily theatre of scandals, arguments and
reconciliations in the bloated unity government.
But this time it's serious. Mr Odinga suspended two cabinet heavyweights on
Sunday over corruption investigations but was almost immediately over-ruled
by the president, who accused him of over-stepping his authority. The prime
minister has responded by calling for the return of peace envoy Kofi Annan
and threatening to boycott cabinet meetings.
Q: How did Kenya arrive at a power-sharing government?
As 2007 became 2008 the island of stability in the Horn of Africa slid to
the brink of civil war. A crudely rigged election divided the country along
ethnic lines and in the bloodbath that followed as many as 1,500 people are
thought to have died.
Mr Odinga appeared to have beaten the incumbent Mwai Kibaki comfortably in
the December poll but electoral authorities cut short the count and
announced the sitting president the winner. While rival gangs fought and
died in the city slums and the towns of the Great Rift Valley, the political
elite stage-managed the chaos, distributing arms and cash to strengthen
their own positions at the bargaining table. The fighting was stopped after
marathon peace talks brokered by UN special envoy Kofi Annan. The deal saw
both sides join an expanded government committed to a raft of reforms and a
proper investigation into the fighting.
Q: What's happened to that investigation?
A report identifying the culprits was promptly drawn up and handed to the
government to establish a local tribunal to try the suspects. That tribunal
was blocked last year by Kenya's parliament in a blatant example of looking
after their own, with several members reportedly on the list.
Mr Annan has instead handed the Waki Report to the International Criminal
Court in The Hague which is now deciding whether to proceed to indictments.
At least two current cabinet ministers are believed to be among the
"architects of the post-election violence" being sought by the ICC's chief
prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who has vowed to make an example of Kenya.
Q: What are the allegations?
Grand corruption has blighted East Africa's biggest economy from the
Goldenberg scandal of the 1990s, which cost the country at least 10 per cent
of GDP, to the Anglo Leasing affair during the first term of President
Kibaki. The latest graft scandals are equally venal with US$26m disappearing
in a maize scam that stole food from the mouths of starving Kenyans; the
other saw up to US$1m embezzled at the education ministry from funds meant
to support free schooling for young children. As usual, investigations have
been launched but neither agriculture minister William Ruto nor education
minister Sam Ongeri saw fit to resign.
Q: Is this about corruption?
While corruption is arguably the issue in Kenya it's not the reason that the
unity government marriage is on the rocks. Behind the scenes it has become
increasingly clear that an informal deal between the two protagonists - that
Mr Kibaki would endorse Mr Odinga for the presidency at the next elections,
expected in 2012, in return for his support now - has been reneged upon.
At the least, the prime minister would demand that the president not
actively support anyone standing against him but it's now clear that will
not happen either. The battle lines between Mr Kibaki's PNU party and Mr
Odinga's ODM have been drawn and corruption happens to be the chosen issue.
Q: Who are the opposing sides?
Afro-pessimists dismiss Kenya's politics as tribal and national polls have
functioned as periodic ethnic censuses, but the reality is more complicated
than that. Each election in Kenya is different and the alliances that win or
lose them are shifting. Mr Odinga drew support last time by rallying Kenya's
smaller tribes into an anti-Kikuyu bloc that sought to end the dominance of
Kenya's largest tribe, of which Mr Kibaki is a member. The prime minister,
who like Barack Obama's father hails from the Luo tribe, is fashioning a new
alliance to break up the status quo and reshape it in his own favour. His
main opponents look like being Mr Ruto, whose numerous Kalenjin tribe were
previously allies, and Uhuru Kenyatta, the finance minister, Kikuyu
millionaire and scion of the family that led Kenya at independence.
Q: What is the PM up to?
While he comes from a political dynasty and has been steeped in high
politics since birth, Mr Odinga is phenomenally adept at recasting himself
as a man of the people. Throughout his career he has landed on the right
side of the key issues - sometimes with the help of a complete U-turn - just
at the right time. He appears to be doing so again. His advisers understand
that the election in 2002 was about getting rid of the reviled Daniel arap
Moi, who had overseen a brutal one-party state.
The 2007 poll, they know, was reduced to identity politics. Now, some
analysts believe Mr Odinga is trying to shape the terms of the next vote and
trying out issues like the environment, corruption and probably
constitutional reform next to see what works. When that becomes clear he
will likely resign from the government and campaign as the leader of the
opposition.
Q: How serious is the crisis?
While it is unlikely to prompt a return to street-fighting, the current
impasse practically guarantees that nothing constructive will get done in
Kenya before the next election. The East African nation has been ravaged by
drought, its economy was pounded by the post election crisis and is only
slowly recovering, and life for ordinary Kenyans is still appallingly hard.
Key reforms in the police, judiciary, constitution and economy that are
widely understood to be vital will sit on the shelf. In a country with so
vast an underclass as Kenya any assumption of stability is complacent.
Because of the importance of its markets, ports and roads, when Kenya
sneezes the entire region catches cold. Anything that hurts recovery in
Nairobi will be felt from Rwanda to South Sudan.
Q: Is Kenya increasingly a failed state?
This newspaper said as much in July last year after the country was listed
by the US-based Fund for Peace as 14th from bottom of their failed states
index. If a state exists to provide security, maintain its borders, provide
food and a functioning judicial system, then Kenya presently fails on all
those counts. Corruption watchdog Transparency International yesterday said
Kenya was sliding towards failure and warned of "political meltdown".
The lack of serious weaponry for a sustained civil war means it doesn't
resemble a failed state like its neighbours Somalia or Sudan, but guns are
not in short supply in the region. Many believe that the international
community's investment in Nairobi, which is the regional hub for aid
agencies, the UN and Western diplomatic missions, makes the state too big to
fail.
But those institutions were, almost without exception, blind-sided by the
post-election killing spree and powerless to do much about it. Kenya could
be coming apart at the seams or simply getting ready for the next election
campaign - or both simultaneously.
Q: Is Kenya on the verge of political meltdown?
Yes...
* The African vogue for unity governments has been an unqualified failure as
Kenya and Zimbabwe show
* The political parties are nothing more than tribal gangs building up war
chests for the next round
* Failure to prosecute the architects of the post-election violence has
reinforced the dangerous impunity
No...
* Kenya has been to the brink and has neither the guns nor the appetite for
a fresh fight
* Kenyans have seen through the ethnic politics after seeing the unity
government united in greed
* The next election campaign has begun and a free and fair vote is the only
solution to a flawed government
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-big-question-whats-gone-
wrong-in-kenya-and-is-the-peace-deal-unravelling-1901556.html?action=Popup>
At loggerheads: President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga
AP
At loggerheads: President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga
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