The groundbreaking programme for political reform set out in the new constitution is at risk as members of parliament and party activists position themselves for the presidential succession after next year’s elections. Political, personal and party loyalties are in flux in the run-up to the elections, when President Mwai Kibaki is due to step down, and they will be haunted by the violent aftermath of the 2007 polls.

Many Kenyans say that little has been done to avoid another such confrontation and point to a growing belligerence in political rhetoric in recent months – especially among those politicians who are under investigation by the International Criminal Court. The latest round of opinion polls in mid-July put Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga, leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), in a leading position. In a straight contest with Uhuru Kenyatta, his main challenger, Raila Odinga would take 52% of the vote to Uhuru Kenyatta’s 43%. Kenyatta is deputy Prime Minister, President Kibaki’s heir-apparent for the leadership of the Kikuyu – the most populous ethnic group – and the son of founding President Jomo Kenyatta.

Among some, the poll may have provoked a feeling of déjà vu, recalling Kenya’s immediate post-Independence period. Raila’s father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who at the height of the Independence struggle had revived Jomo Kenyatta’s status as leader of the nationalist cause, was pushed into the political cold by his old mentor soon after Independence. Now, at the dawn of a new dispensation, their sons appear to be participating in another passion play.

Such a reading of history would be premature. One key difference is that before the coming general elections, Kenyatta, along with another presidential frontrunner, William Kipchirchir Samoei arap Ruto, faces possible trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court at the Hague, a prospect that would lock both out of the 2012 presidential race.

This and the plethora of political alliances ranged against Odinga make the race intriguing. At least seven politicians have already announced their intention to stand in the 2012 presidential election. Under the new constitution, a failed stab at the presidency precludes the holding of any political office for the next five years. So these declarations seem little more than early efforts to build ethnic constituencies for trading in the political marketplace further down the road.

Karua challenges
The declarations, however, are slowing down any organised campaigns against Odinga. This applies especially to Kenyatta. He has loudly appealed for Kikuyu political unity, with him, needless to say, as leader. He faces, however, two serious challengers. The first is Martha Karua, leader of the National Rainbow Coalition-Kenya party, a former activist-politician who cut her teeth among the motley crew of Young Turks that stood up to President Daniel Toroitich arap Moi in his autocratic heyday. She was Kibaki’s most intrepid lieutenant during the 2007 election dispute but when her old boss passed her over to anoint Uhuru Kenyatta as his putative successor, she went back to opposition politics and has decided to make her own bid for the presidency.

She is unlikely to succeed but may well go into a last-minute alliance with Odinga, her old antipathy for him perhaps tempered by her experience at the hands of the Kikuyu patriarchy. Her anti-Uhuru counterpart in Central Province is Peter Kenneth, a dapper, moderate politician whose quiet, grassroots development record began to attract notice a few years ago. Although he has yet to formally announce his candidature, his supporters recently took all the council seats in his Gatanga constituency in the face of an onslaught by Kenyatta-supporters.

Group of seven
For two years, Kenyatta and Ruto have attempted to forge an alliance that could compete with Odinga and the ODM, the dominant party in Parliament. The latest, dubbed the Group of Seven, is a coalition of regional ethnic kingpins, all of whom have gravitated around the duo, mostly out of a sense of grievance against Odinga.

Regardless of the favourable polls, the Odinga camp has to contend with considerable challenges. The first is the curse of incumbency. While as Prime Minister, Odinga has successfully secured his image as a nationalist figure and a unifying force, staring down a series of ethnic challengers, but there is a sense of unmet expectations, especially in his Luoland and outlying ODM strongholds in western Kenya and the Rift Valley.

In fact, it is precisely these expectations, generated almost hysterically during the 2007 campaigns, that have been used against him by his main detractors. When, soon after the formation of the coalition government, it became clear that there was no real ideological common ground between himself and Ruto, who had secured for Odinga the populous Rift Valley Kalenjin vote, the ODM began to haemorrhage support. Now, having effectively lost the Rift Valley, Odinga faces the real problem of how to rebuild party structures and support around the country without playing the divisive anti-Kikuyu ethnic card that was so effective for the ODM in the 2007 campaigns.

Related to this is the problem of his running mate, Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi, who won the western Kenya Luhya vote for the ODM and became the party’s second-in-command. Now, however, support is growing in western Kenya for Eugene Wamalwa, the younger brother of Kibaki’s former Vice-President, the late Michael Kijana Wamalwa.

Eugene has gravitated to the Ruto camp and many believe his political star could rise as part of a Ruto move to split the Luhya vote, the second biggest ethnic voting bloc. An impression that Musalia Mudavadi’s influence might be waning seemed to be confirmed when the ODM lost a crucial by-election to an ally of Wamalwa in April.

The ODM’s biggest headache remains Ruto himself. While he has long announced that he will be defecting to the United Democratic Movement (UDM), a party he set up in the late-1990s, he has not gone over yet. The ODM leadership has not moved decisively against him, leaving his disruptive influence to hurt the party and to prevent it from renewing its support base among the Kalenjin.

Neither Ruto nor his supporters want to risk defecting and thus forcing expensive by-elections which they are not guaranteed to win. However, by delaying his defection, Ruto runs fatal risks. The new electoral laws stipulate that candidates can run only on a party ticket after they have been members of that party for at least six months. In other words, they need to get moving. However, the UDM’s current Chairman is allied to the Prime Minister and is in no hurry to accommodate the Ruto newcomers.

Constitution delayed
Behind the personality politics, however, much more fundamental issues are at play. The new constitution, which was to have exorcised the nation of the ghosts of post-election violence, is running far behind schedule. Parliament has passed into law only a handful of implementation bills. With a month left before the statutory limit that would fully establish the key pillars of the constitution, there are still 20 bills outstanding – and Parliament is about to go on its three-month summer recess.

None of the underlying issues that triggered the post-election violence has been fully addressed and the rhetoric of reform is masking deep national divisions. Both the parliamentary oversight body, the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution, and the independent Constitution Implementation Commission are describing the situation as a crisis and calling for emergency measures. There was talk in mid-July that Parliament would be forced to lump together all the pending bills and pass them in a last-gasp session, sowing the seeds of future recrimination and discord when they are properly examined later.

The situation may appear chaotic but this legislative paralysis has been deliberately orchestrated, many analysts believe, by Kenya’s securocrats – powerful conservatives within the civil service, army and police who, with their friends in the G-7 alliance, fear a constitution that could open up their collectively dubious pasts to public and judicial scrutiny.

Source: africa-confidential.com