Former President must be neutral as per supreme law Kenyatta must be neutral
In 2018, I published Uhuru Kenyatta: A Legacy of Democracy and Development — a collection of the speeches and writings of Kenya’s 4th President between April 2013 and August 2017. At the time, optimism was in the air.
I had every reason to believe that Kenya’s Fourth Republic, springing from the economic boom and democratic ambience of Mwai Kibaki’s ‘golden era’, would bequeath the country a dual legacy of prosperity and greater freedom.
Today, as the former President gets mired deeper into the mud of politics, and as the country reels under its worst economic crisis, what looms large on the horizon is a legacy of poverty, elite fragmentation, instability and hubris of power.
Truth be told, the emperor has no clothes. The former Commander-in-Chief of Kenya’s Defence Forces has, unwittingly but decidedly, taken sides in a dirty factional fight that has rocked his Jubilee Party.
The supremacy war pits a faction led by Secretary-General Jeremiah Kioni and allied to Azimio, against its rival led by East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) member Kanini Kega and aligned to Kenya Kwanza.
On May 2, 2023, Kenyatta was ignominiously ousted as party leader and replaced by Sabina Chege in an acting capacity. A defiant former President stormed the Jubilee Party headquarters, addressed a press conference criticising the police and dared rival members to quit.
He has since placed an advert in the dailies giving the notice to convene a National Delegates Convention at the Bomas of Kenya on May 22, 2023. The Sabina-Kanini faction has alleged misconduct and referred Kenyatta to the National Disciplinary Committee for action.
The fight-in-a-pigsty that ensued with Sabina — a Nominated Member of Parliament and his handpicked member of the Azimio La Umoja-One Kenya Council — is eroding Kenyatta’s moral shine.
Manoeuvres for ‘self-succession’ by Kenyatta and his close allies have resulted in three unfinished or trapped transitions.
Region’s kingpin
First, in his Mount Kenya region, he has shot down every initiative to replace him, insisting on remaining the region’s kingpin. The unfinished change of guard in the region has widened the gap between the Kikuyu homeland and its diaspora and badly split the region between Mount Kenya East (Embu and Meru) and Kikuyu counties in Central Kenya.
Today, Kenyatta is publicly embroiled in an ugly struggle for the kingpin mantle in the region with new challengers. In an ironic twist, Dr Ruto, who carried the vote in the Mountain, is the de jure heir to Kenyatta as regional kingpin.
Second, the mayhem in Jubilee reflects the unfinished rivalry between Kenyatta and his former deputy, now in its second round after the election. It all started in 2015 following a series of anti-corruption allegations that purged Ruto’s allies from the government.
In a typical use-and-dump fashion, Kenyatta tactically used Ruto’s support to win a second term in the 2017 election. Outnumbered in the party, Kenyatta courted MPs in Raila Odinga’s ODM to ensure that pro-Ruto MPs did not shut down the government or, worse still, impeach him.
As such, the so-called “handshake” with Odinga in March 2018 was not a “peace pact”, but a self-defence strategy. In return, Kenyatta appointed Raila and his loyalists to positions in government. The result was a mongrel democracy. While the Official Leader of the Opposition became the de facto second in command to the President, the Deputy President was, to all intents and purposes, the “leader of the opposition”.
This split the ruling Jubilee party right down the middle. Instead, politicians, government officials and advisers manoeuvred to succeed themselves upon Kenyatta’s exit from power. Following the logic of ‘self-succession’, they threw their lot behind Odinga’s presidential bid as a strategy to govern by proxy after the election.
As President and chairperson of the Azimio Council, Kenyatta placed the “deep state” and the powerful national administration at Raila’s disposal while the government and allied Mount Kenya elite underwrote his presidential campaign. This was all calibrated to deliver a “third term” behind the curtain.
David-Goliath duel
The Mount Kenya voter rejected Kenyatta’s candidate, wary of being seen as people who cannot keep their word. They voted for Ruto who defeated the government’s juggernaut in a classic David-Goliath duel in the August 2022 presidential contest. The self-succession strategy collapsed. But it quickly gave way to the idea of ‘self-coup’, understood as a form of coup d'état in which a nation’s head, having come to power through legal means, tries to stay in power through illegal means.
Focus shifted to the IEBC as the Azimio brigade moved to split consensus, disparage and reject the results of the presidential poll. “We cannot take ownership of the results that are going to be announced at the Bomas of Kenya,” said four commissioners seemingly aligned to the Kenyatta-Raila outfit. Violence, viewed as an attempt to disrupt the declaration of presidential results, erupted at Bomas of Kenya. Kenyatta never congratulated the president-elect. “Raila is my leader,” he said on September 7, 2022. Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party has since co-sponsored the Azimio coalition’s anti-government protests (Maadamano).
This week, Kenyatta’s ally and Jubilee vice-chairperson, David Murathe, controversially declared that President “Ruto will serve only one term—and that is if he is lucky enough to finish one term.”
Expectedly, the President’s allies have insisted that Kenyatta was funding the anti-government projects. Kenyatta’s move to remain Jubilee and Azimio chief violates the President Retirement Benefits Act, which is categorical that a “retired president shall not hold office in any political party for more than six months after ceasing to hold the office as president.”
By law, Kenyatta ceased to be Jubilee Party leader and chairperson of the Azimio la Umoja Coalition in March 2023. Although he is Kenya’s only living former President, Kenyatta has dithered on taking over the post-presidency. The Act created the ‘office of retired president’ as one of the laws to stabilise our democracy.
This idea was inspired by the role of former presidents in calming nations in distress. Former presidents are “expected to play a consultative and advisory role to the government and the People of Kenya’ and to “perform special official functions”.
In this context, Ruto appointed Kenyatta as peace envoy to the warring Ethiopia and Congo.
Obviously, with third terms outlawed, Kenyatta’s self-succession is futile. According to recent research, nearly 60 per cent of Kenyans want the former president to quit active politics, remain non-partisan and enjoy his retirement. He is an asset to Kenya and Africa as a neutral arbiter. BY DAILY NATION
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