In the course of any presidency in this country, sooner or later there comes an event which marks a definite shift in trajectory – a defining moment, from which it will later be judged to have entered into a downward spiral, from which there could be no hope of recovery. And these events which later assume such great significance are usually not initially understood as such by the general public. At the time that these events take place they are merely one more terrible shock to the long-suffering Kenyan public. This is because this loss of legitimacy is often concealed behind the drama of the moment. To give one concrete example of what I mean, consider Rogue Ambassador: An African Memoir by the US Ambassador to Kenya, in the early 1990s, Smith Hempstone. He mentions in the oblique manner that characterizes all his narratives of the relationships between Kenya and the US, something which senior civil servants of that time have since made plain statements about: that the brutal murder in February 1990, of the brilliant Foreign Minister of the time, Dr Robert Ouko, made it impossible for Kenya’s “development partners” to continue with business as usual, with the Moi regime. You have to bear it in mind that the Kenya we now live in is a very different country from that which the retired President Moi ruled with an iron fist. Back then, Kenya was very much a donor-dependent nation, with about 20 per cent of our annual budget being financed by the rich nations, unlike now when barely five per centof the annual budget comes from such sources. In short, we were a classic Third World client state of powerful nations like the US, and so what they thought about Kenya, mattered a great deal. Two things about donor dependency, before we move on: first, that it could be said that retired President Mwai Kibaki did more than any other Kenyan leader to help Kenya gain its ‘economic freedom’ – though whether this was ultimately a benefit to the ordinary people of Kenya (given that it took away a major limiting factor, imposed on official corruption within Kenya) remains to be seen. Second is that when you hear the likes of Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni; Rwanda’s Paul Kagame; and Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete make big speeches about African dignity and so on, it is easy to forget that their countries are still very much client-states of the great powers, just as Kenya was in the Moi era. Last time I checked, most of our neighbours in East Africa still depended on donor support for something like 30% of their national budgets – not at all a position which validates big talk about ‘African dignity’. And I should add that they all qualify for special consideration in all donor funding (and donor debt cancellation programmes) since they are all HIPCs – Highly Indebted Poor Countries, something which Kenya wasn’t, even in the Moi era. And speaking of Kibaki, although his place in history may be secure as a result of the economic policies implemented which took the country massively forward, there are many of us old enough to remember that he also broke one of the most important promises he made during his swearing-in ceremony in 2002. Speaking in ringing tones, Kibaki assured us that “corruption will cease to be a way of life in Kenya”. But then came the Anglo-leasing scandal, to make nonsense of this assurance. And though it can generally be said of Kenyan presidential politics, that it’s all about the calculus of tribal voting blocs, all the same it is true that the perception created by Anglo Leasing, that top-level corruption actually continued to be a way of life in the Kibaki government, contributed significantly to Kibaki’s vulnerability in the 2005 referendum (which he lost) as well as the 2007 general election (which he certainly did not win in any conclusive manner). So, just as the Moi political establishment never recovered from the Ouko assassination; and just as Kibaki never shook off the ghost of Anglo Leasing; so too does Uhuru Kenyatta now face a defining moment in his presidency. Uhuru is the first president elected under the new constitution - a constitution which established civil liberties for all Kenyans. If it should turn out that all this elaborate talk of gearing up to fight terrorism through new laws, actually initiates a process that ends up taking away these hard-won civil liberties of Kenyans, than this is a fact which will neither be forgiven nor forgotten. - See more at: twitter/@KELVINJOMO
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 08:50:03 +0000
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