By Abdullahi Jamaa & Rhoda Mutuku
The international community is exerting pressure on Kenya’s political leaders to engage dialogue ahead of planned and controversial swearing in of opposition leader Raila Odinga who has since rejected proposals to establish a government of national unity.
This week, the United States sent its Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto to help mediate a political resolution to avoid the nation from plunging into a dangerous abyss.
According to a statement from the US embassy in Nairobi, Yamamoto met with Kenyan government officials, civil society representatives, and opposition leaders as part of an invigorated diplomatic attempt to push for a political settlement.
“The United States also urges opposition leaders to work within Kenya’s laws to pursue the reforms they seek and to avoid extra-constitutional actions such as the proposed “inauguration ceremony” on December 12” read part of the statement.
It seems, however, the US African diplomat failed to convince the opposition either in rescinding their planned inauguration or accepting to engage in a dialogue to pave way for a another coalition government.
With Yamamoto’s diplomatic trip to Nairobi yielding no fruits, the US statement fell far short of any meaningful results only reducing to calls for and cautions against any possible political upheavals if Raila maintains his hard stance.
“We again call for an immediate, sustained, open, and transparent national conversation involving all Kenyans to build national unity, address long-standing issues, and resolve the deep divisions that the electoral process has exacerbated,” the statement said further
In its part, the opposition is seemingly treating the US like a back seat driver in the current Kenyan crisis. This is so because the relationship between US embassy and the NASA leadership has been weakened after the latter accused it of observing what it calls a shambolic election that scuttled the country’s fledgling democracy.
Robert Godec, the US ambassador in Nairobi is in bad books with Raila and Yamamoto is apparently barking up the wrong tree. The failure to entice Raila to agree to a unity government is taking the diplomat all the way to Ethiopia where he is expected to chart a new international effort seeking support from the African Union (AU)
In the meantime, however, opposition leader Raila Odinga has been defiant against any international demand that calls for him to cede some grounds in his radical political roadmap that included using what he calls the ‘power of the people.’
“Our friends can give us advice … in privacy. Don’t come and shout at us, and tell us that we are going to violate the constitution. Which constitution, my foot,” Odinga told reporters in Nairobi.
The country has witnessed a constant political upheaval occasioned by August 8, presidential election which went on to be nullified by the Supreme Court.
And only a few weeks back, one could easily imagine that the validation of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s election of October 26, repeat polls by the Supreme Court would finally settle the dust on the country’s political arena after eight months of cutthroat showdown.
With the status quo today, however, there seems to be no end in sight for the seemingly unending political fever that has gripped the country.
While National Super Alliance (NASA) leadership has come out with their guns blazing, determined to suffocate Jubilee administration with all manners of frustrations from secession calls to calls for economic boycott, the government on its part seems unshaken.
Every moment a political issue arises, both sides of the political divide- jubilee and Nasa have exhibited utmost preparedness with either side always appearing to have drawn the daggers, ready to go for each other’s jugular.
Shortly after President Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto took oath of office for second term on November 28, Nasa leader Raila Odinga kicked up a storm insisting he will not recognize President Kenyatta’s legitimacy and vowed that he will be sworn in as ‘People’s president.’
In a startling statement that has attracted a barrage of reactions from across the political divide, Odinga said he will take oath of office on December 12 using Chapter 1 of the Constitution, which states that sovereign power belongs to the people.
“I am not a coward, I will be sworn as president on Jamhuri Day, I am the legitimate president,” he told his supporters and added “he will take charge of statehouse immediately after taking his oath.
While the idea to have Raila sworn in has been overwhelmingly acknowledged in regions where Nasa enjoys wide support, supporters and leaders of jubilee administration have charged back with sharp warnings, accusing Raila and entire opposition brigade of violating the constitution.
Odinga who pulled out of October 26, repeat polls said his inauguration is to be based on August 8, polls which he claimed to have won garnering 8.8 million votes against President Kenyatta’s 7.1 million but was rigged out through manipulation of numbers in IEBC servers.
And as plans to swear him in as ‘People’s president’ continue to take shape ahead of planned December 12, date at a venue yet to be disclosed, pressure is now being mounted on the opposition side to shelve the plans amidst warnings that such arrangement could amount to high treason, punishable by death.
Attorney general Professor Githu Muigai has been the latest figure to add his legal voice warning that swearing-in Odinga would be an illegality attracting charges of treason.
According to the chief legal advisor to the government, such an inauguration would be outside the Constitution because Kenya already a sitting president who took oath of office on November 28, warning the government would not stop at anything to prevent breach of the rule of law and the constitution.
“Any person who takes part in such an inauguration, will face the law. Treason charges attract the death sentence in Kenya,” warns the AG ”
But the opposition coalition has dismissed the AG’s warning as empty threats insisting there will be no turning back on their planned meeting to ‘swear-in’ Raila Odinga as ‘the people’s president” even as secrecy continues to enshroud the said inauguration’s venue.
“We are not turning back. Actually, Nasa’s vehicle has no reverse gear and from tomorrow, it will not have brakes,”Mr Oduor Ong’wen, a member of the National Super Alliance’s People’s Assembly Organizing Committee, said adding the Tuesday event will be to “inaugurate the leadership.”
Bungoma senator Moses Wetangula on his part laughed off at the Prof Muigai’s interpretation of the law as misguiding and unpractical saying it will be practically impossible to hung all the figures in Nasa.
“Tell me who has ever been hanged in Kenya? Those are mere empty threats which will not shake us an inch… You want to tell us you can hang Raila, Mudavadi, Wetangula and other leaders? Does that mean that you will be left with an empty country to lead yourself,” posed the Bungoma senator.
National Committee for Implementation of Citizen Participation in Security, on the other hand equates plans to swear in Raila to recipe for chaos.
The committee’s chairperson Joseph Kaguthi says the announcement by Raila was already causing anxiety in the country noting there is need for sobriety, in that the electioneering period was over.
“The country has lost so many lives in the name of politics. It is time we focused on developing this nation that is bigger than any individual,” he said describing Raila’s swearing-in plans as treasonable.
Energy Cabinet Secretary Charles Keter and Belgut Member of Parliament (MP) Nelson Koech warned that the Government would not allow any attempt to swear in Raila.
“Those thinking they can conduct an illegal swearing-in on December 12 are deluding themselves. We want to tell them the Government is intact and will deal with them,” said Keter.
But in a statement delivered by his adviser Salim Lone, Odinga accused President Uhuru Kenyatta of making zero efforts to lower the political temperatures even after the Supreme Court validated his October 26 election victory.
While dismissing calls to call off the swearing-in ceremony on the grounds that it would polarise the nation Odinga observed “Kenya has never been as polarised as it has been the past few months,”.
The advisor said planned swearing-in of Mr Odinga will be lawful and will help to prevent further polarisation by giving Kenyans hope for electoral justice, which was denied to them, under a genuinely independent electoral commission.
As the standoff sustains, there have been calls for dialogue between Jubilee and Nasa to end the status quo
The Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) consider dialogue between both parties as the only way to deliver the country out of economic crisis.
“We appeal for meaningful dialogue between Jubilee and Nasa in order to address issues before them for the country to come out of the current political quagmire, we also believe as a federation that no matter is big for the two to resolve if they engage in dialogue,” said Executive Director Jacqueline Mugo
As Nasa insists that it will swear in its presidential candidate Raila Odinga on Tuesday, it is still not clear who will swear in Odinga. The Constitution provides in Article 141 that the president-elect should be sworn in by the chief registrar of the Judiciary in the presence of the chief justice, or in his absence, the deputy chief justice.
The venue of the “inauguration of leadership” is also not clear. A letter purportedly sent from the ‘inauguration’ organisers to Nasa-leaning governors asking for a venue has been disowned by the coalition, but this question remains on many people’s minds because the government has vowed not to allow any other political congregation other than the Jamhuri celebrations in Nairobi
Under the Assumption of the Office of President Act, the swearing-in should take place in Nairobi between 10am and 2pm on a date and at a place to be designated by the committee that oversees the process and published in the Kenya Gazette.
