FIRE IS THE TEST OF GOLD; ADVERSITY, OF STRONG MEN. No President of Kenya has undergone so perilous a voyage – personally, institutionally, politically, diplomatically and reputation-wise – as has Uhuru Kenyatta in the early phase of his incumbency. Uhuru Kenyatta, has got off to the most testing time of them all. First, UHURUTO made history when they entered office as the first members anywhere of a presidential institution with ICC crimes-against-humanity charges. The Western powers were absolutely opposed to their candidature and even gave thinly veiled warnings to the Kenyan electorate not to vote them in. Some cautioned Kenya’s voters that “choices have consequences”. Others declared that they would relate with Kenya only when absolutely necessary. Western officials got off on the wrong foot, sending the signal that they hoped Mr. Kenyatta would lose. They used the opposition and their N.G.O. subjects to challenge the suitability of UHURUTO to hold public office. That suit failed. They then funded the CORD-N.G.O. petition against Jubilees victory. The Supreme Court on instead unanimously upheld the election victory of Uhuru Kenyatta as the country’s president, dismissing allegations that the vote had been rigged. His victory over Raila and the Supreme Courts verdict, was the first triumph to be subjected to litigation since Kibaki took Moi to court in 1998, and lost. Africa is on the rise. A man accused of crimes against humanity is now the most powerful person in East Africa. With the grace of God, the ICCs case against Uhuru Kenyatta and its credibility, seem to be crumbling. So far, it is not Kenyatta on trial in the court of world opinion but the ICC for which this is seen as a defining moment – the perception that it is an instrument of the West that is inherently biased against Africa.. Dont expect the West to ask awkward questions about such matters; a collapse of the case against Kenyatta would suit the UK and US just fine. They are preparing for the awkward etiquette of arms length diplomatic relations with Uhuru Kenyatta. Last year, President Uhuru became the first President in the history of Africa to marshal all the 54 nations in Africa with the aim of amending an international statute that favoured his cases at the ICC. US President Barrack Obama once described Uhuru as an “African leader who is loved by all Africans”. He said the African Union (AU)’s support for his case at the ICC is a good indication that Uhuru may one time become one of the greatest leaders in Africa. “Europe has Winston Churchill, America has George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Russia has Stalin and Khrushchev and Africa in the next decade will have its pairs of great leaders,” Obama wrote in the journal. “It is not easy to marshal the whole content to support your course. He is a leader that the world deserves,” Obama added. It is now business as usual with the West. Kenya is too big to ignore. British companies are heavily invested in its economy. Kenyan troops are helping battle Islamist militants inside Somalia, and Kenya hosts a US military base near the Somali border. Kenyas first effort to raise capital from European and American investors is being seen as a success after it attracted strong demand (raising $2bn). The recent US-Africa Summit was another plus for Uhurus victory over the forces of darkness. Upon assumption of office, President Kenyatta has faced leadership, management, insecurity, inflationary, and discontentment challenges in his first one-and-a-half years in office that are more than enough even for a complete first-term incumbency. The presidency has been shorn of much of its power and fiat, courtesy of the new constitution. The President has had myriad of frustrations at having to work with a Constitution whose spirit is decidedly NGO, a contradiction in terms if there ever was one. Today, the President cannot so much as support an initiative without being stopped in his tracks by parliamentary probe committees or court injunctions, albeit temporarily. These many tests of his administrations, some of them unprecedented and other factors, are swiftly snow-balling into serious legitimacy challenges that point to an early onset of the lame-duck phase of a presidency, particularly in the face of the looming referendum challenge. This is a make-or-break phase pregnant with all sorts of dangers for the President. In this era of digital hacking, the compiling in one place of such a comprehensive file on such a VIP will almost certainly attract hackers’ collectives like Anonymous and Wikileaks and the resultant leaks could have consequences, including of a taxation nature, far into the future. This is a dilemma faced by no other incumbent head of State and Government. Will UHURUTO servive all these challenges along with the referendum onslaught? If all the previous hurdles are anything to go by, your guess is as good as mine.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 10:31:31 +0000
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