Tag Archives: kenyan politics

Institutions and Political Change in Kenya

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These are interesting times in Kenya. The Deputy Chief Justice and Vice President of the Supreme Court, Nancy Baraza, stands to lose her job for harassing a female security guard on New Year’s Eve.

Ms Baraza’s ordeal is interesting because it captures the momentous changes taking place in Kenya’s institutions of governance. The idea that a public official of such high stature could get in trouble for the “simple act” of threatening a security guard was laughable only a few years ago. Not long ago Kenya was divided between wananchi (loosely translates to citizens) and wenyenchi (owners of the country), the latter being virtually above the law. That has since changed. Even the president has in the recent past been forced to reconsider his actions whenever they were deemed to be in contravention of the supreme law of the land.

But the progression towards this state of affairs has not been straightforward – which is why I think that the Kenyan case is a good lesson in contemporary evolution of limited government.

Academic discussions of limited government revolve around the question of how to achieve credible commitment among the veto players within a polity. That is, how competing factions within the state can agree to a modus operandi that makes their interactions predictable and objectively justifiable based on a predefined idea of what actions are legitimate. The most common way to do this is usually to have institutions of state defined in constitutions and to regularly elect public officials.

But as Stasavage has argued, the mere existence of institutions and veto players is not a sufficient condition for credible commitment. There must be a guarantee that specific important veto players will have de facto veto power. In other words, it matters that various factions within society CAN balance each other.

How does this map onto the Kenyan case?

Contrary to the popular view, the story does not begin with the 2007-2008 post-election violence and the formation of the Grand Coalition Government. The story begins with the pro-capitalist policies of president Kenyatta that created room for the emergence of a wealthy upper class within Kenyan society. At the beginning, this class was totally dependent on the state for its reproduction. But over time, segments of the class acquired independence. Under Moi and now under Kibaki there is a sizeable chunk of the economic upper class that makes its money without a personalist connection to the state [You have to take my word on this, for now.]

The fact that both Odinga and Kibaki have had public fall-outs with wealthy co-ethnics who have then decamped to the other side is illustrative of this fact.

It is this emergence of “independent wealth” that provided the foundation of the strong opposition that emerged after Moi retired. Led by Raila Odinga and his allies, these politicians had the money and social capital to challenge the president and his men on equal terms. That is why when stuff hit the fan in 2007-08 Kibaki had no option but to agree to share some of his power with Odinga. The two men knew that neither of them could win the game of “my street against your street.”  It is also why the negotiated settlement that is Kenya’s new constitution was an exercise in give and take, with an absurd emphasis on procedure and self-executing clauses.

The implementation of the new constitution has not been any different. Which takes us back to Ms Nancy Baraza.

It is common knowledge that Ms Baraza was not an establishment appointment to the Supreme Court. She was part of the civil society coup in judicial appointments which also included the Chief Justice. Having “lost the court” the establishment ensured it had control by insisting on maintaining control over the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General. The establishment also controls the Police Force. Their challengers (who are no angels themselves) had the goodwill of civil society and big enough constituencies in key organs of the state – including the military. They also had a plurality in parliament.

So when Baraza got in trouble due to what appears to be a lapse in judgment, the establishment saw a chance to get her out. But they had to do it within the bounds of due process. And so they have been quick at it. The police (whose top brass will be fired soon by a panel laden with civil society types) conducted a quick investigation and concluded that the DCJ had a case to answer. The Judicial Service Commission has since arrived at the same conclusion, and recommended the Justice’s suspension to the president. The process has thus far been transparent, with very few questioning the legitimacy of the inquiry into the behavior of Ms Baraza.

Meanwhile the civil society has been dead quiet. Many fear that their hard fought gains of having two of their own (The Chief Justice and his deputy) in the Supreme Court will be eroded after Ms Baraza’s departure. I bet that when the dust settles and the debate over who should replace Baraza gets heated civil society (and the Odinga camp) will want to replace her with one of their own. It will be interesting to see if the establishment will move to alter the balance of power by challenging this implied consensus.

The long and short of it all is that it matters that competing forces in society credibly balance each other. In those countries (like in most of Sub-Saharan Africa) where presidents and their men have overwhelming power advantages over their opponents, it will be doubly hard for limited government to come about. If the Kenyan experiment succeeds it will be proof that you need not have an inter-ethnic love-fest or the lack of factions for limited government to emerge.

This is mostly a story about the Kenyan political and economic elites. What about the wananchi/masses? That will be the subject of a future post.

khalwale re-elected

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Bonny Khalwale has won back his Ikolomani parliamentary seat. Mr. Khalwale lost his seat after the courts nullified his election in 2007 on account of irregularities.

What does this mean for Kenyan national politics?

My answer is that it is hard to tell. The results will certainly dent Deputy Premier Mudavadi’s claim to be the voice of Western Province. The outcome also reflects badly on Premier Odinga who had staked his reputation in the election by campaigning repeatedly in the constituency for the ODM candidate – who came second. The biggest winner here is Eugene Wamalwa who has been angling for the title of ethnic chief spokesperson for Western Province. It just might serve to increase his chances of being nominated as a vice presidential candidate (by either Uhuru or Kalonzo) in next year’s election.

That said, all politics is local. Clan politics and Western-specific regional and sub-ethnic squabbles definitely played a role in this election. Plus, Mr. Khalwale can always be bought off into the Odinga bandwagon come next year. That is the nature of Kenyan politics.

As regards next year’s general election the field is still wide open. All bets are off until candidates hand in their presidential nomination papers. It is a good thing the constitution has a ban on post-submission negotiation of posts (and alliances).

the political economy of violence

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The Economist reports:

YESTERDAY it was Afghanistan and Congo. Today it is Côte d’Ivoire and Libya. Violence, it seems, is always with us, like poverty. And that might seem all there is to be said: violence is bad, it is worse in poor countries and it makes them poorer.

But this year’s World Development Report, the flagship publication of the World Bank, suggests there is a lot more to say. Violence, the authors argue, is not just one cause of poverty among many: it is becoming the primary cause. Countries that are prey to violence are often trapped in it. Those that are not are escaping poverty. This has profound implications both for poor countries trying to pull themselves together and for rich ones trying to help.

Many think that development is mainly hampered by what is known as a “poverty trap”. Farmers do not buy fertiliser even though they know it will produce a better harvest. If there is no road, they reason, their bumper crop will just rot in the field. The way out of such a trap is to build a road. And if poor countries cannot build it themselves, rich donors should step in.

Yet the World Development Report suggests that the main constraint on development these days may not be a poverty trap but a violence trap. Peaceful countries are managing to escape poverty—which is becoming concentrated in countries riven by civil war, ethnic conflict and organised crime. Violence and bad government prevent them from escaping the trap.

Interesting piece. It is particularly important to note that violence affects everyone’s investment decisions, whether rich or poor.

The thing about poor places is that everyone is poor, elite or not.

No matter that Theodore Obiang’s son is buying the second most expensive boat in the world. If he has to hop on a plane to LA to have fun – instead of say, creating Africa’s Dubai in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea – he and his father remain tin pot dictators. The same applies for Idris Deby of Chad, Biya of Cameroon and many others. These dictators may have property abroad but the fact that they cannot accumulate property at home because of structural insecurity of their property rights (a coup is always a crazy junior officer away) continues to confine their countries to penury.

What do you do when even the dictator does not have stable property rights? How can you develop when no one is secure enough to invest in factories?

what if ruto and uhuru were jailed by the icc?

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Kenyan politics is currently in flux. Two key presidential candidates, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto may be barred from running for public office next year on constitutional grounds. The key beneficiaries of such an eventuality will most probably be Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, the Premier and Vice President respectively.

But what would such an eventuality mean for Kenya?

I’d say not much.

Over the last few weeks Uhuru and Ruto have been crisscrossing the country and holding chest-thumping rallies to prove to someone – either the ICC or the Kenyan political and economic elite – that they have the support of the grassroots. They have also issued thinly veiled threats that violence may erupt in the country if they are whisked to the Hague and barred from running for president in next year’s general election. Why does Uhuru and Ruto feel the need to do this?

In my view, and according to the rules of power politics, a tiger need not shout about its tigritude [I believe it is the great son of Nigeria, Wole Soyinka who coined this phrase].

That Ruto and Uhuru have felt compelled to shout about their support-base and issue threats tells me that they are feeling the heat. The fact of the matter is that the key backers of the duo are the ones who would lose the most in case of a resurgence of violence – think of Kenyan retail, banking, insurance, media and transport barons. These are the people that will lose the most when the Mombasa-Kampala Highway is impassable and Equity Bank closes everywhere. They know this and Uhuru and Ruto also know this. Furthermore, igniting further violence would most certainly attract sterner reaction from international watchdogs like the ICC and the UN Security Council.

There is also the [small] matter that now ordinary Kenyans will also know where exactly the violence is coming from.

Violence is therefore not an option. Not for Ruto and Uhuru. Not for their backers. And most certainly not for the rest of Kenya.

I suggest that the rest of Kenya call their (Uhuru and Ruto’s) bluff about violence next year.

Their battles with justice should not derail the much needed institutional reforms that will take the country out of the miasma of mediocrity that continues to engulf most of the Continent.

In the final analysis, the words of former VP George Saitoti will ring true: There comes a time when Kenya gets bigger than any single individual. Ruto, Uhuru and the wider political class are about to be schooled on this maxim the harsh way.

kenya’s ocampo six at the hague; kenyan politics will never be the same

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The denouement of the saga is still uncertain. Two Kenyan political supremos, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, are appearing at the ICC in the Hague to answer to charges of crimes against humanity. The two are among six Kenyans accused by Moreno Ocampo for being the brains behind the violence in 2007-08 in Kenya that killed over 1300 and displaced close to half a million people.

The ICC trial of the six is likely to bring to light the hypocrisy of Kenya’s ruling class. For far too long the political elite have used violence as a political tool. Former president Moi perfected the craft and got away with it in 1992 and 1997 (more people died then than in 2007-08). If all goes well, it appears that this time around things will be different.

My hope is that the six accused will bring all to light so that Kenyans can know their leaders for who they really are.

There is no doubt that ethnicity will continue to cloud Kenyan politics. But it is also true that Kenyans will, from now on, know what is at stake when their leaders incite them to violence. They will know that this crop of people do not give a rat’s behind about their (the people’s) plight. They will fully understand why the government of Kenya can spend millions of dollars in defense of a few men while hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens (and victims of crimes committed by the very few men) continue to subsist in limbo. They will understand why millions get spent every year to build offices, buy expensive cars and pay for the lavish lives of the ruling elite while ordinary Kenyans starve.

They will know that their tribal leaders do not have their interests at heart.

Whatever the outcome of the ICC trial, the mystic around Kenya’s ethnic leaders is gone. These little venal and inept men and women who like parading around as gods will no longer have the final word on everything.

ethnicity and public employment in kenya

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The Daily Nation reports:

The survey undertaken by the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) gave shocking details of how political patronage and personality-based leadership had reduced the civil service into an exclusive club of the big communities at the expense of the so called small communities.

According to the survey, members of the Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luhya, Kamba and Luo communities occupy 70 per cent of all jobs in the civil service.

Keep in mind that Kenya has about 42 ethnic groups.

I personally did not find this very shocking. The report indicates that the two ethnic groups that have occupied the Kenyan presidency since independence, the Kikuyu and Kalenjin, together make up 40% of the civil service.

My hope is that this report will initiate debate over merit in public employment. It is about time we had standardized and transparent ways of hiring public servants and not leave all the discretion in the hands of venal pols.

is kenya at last getting limited government?

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On Thursday Speaker of the Kenyan Parliament Kenneth Marende ruled that President Kibaki’s appointments to constitutional offices were unconstitutional. The politics of the decision aside (it is a war between Premier Odinga and others intent on succeeding Mr. Kibaki in 2012) it is a good sign that finally Kenya may have gotten a system of political balance of powers. No single faction appears to be able to do whatever it wants, wapende wasipende.

Scholars like Nobel Laureate Douglas North, Barry Weingast (of my Department), among others, have argued that limited government (in which centres of power balance each other to prevent tyranny) is one of the key ingredients in the quest for long-run Economic growth and political stability.

Kenya appears to be on the threshold of obtaining limited government. It began with President Kibaki’s laid back approach to governing which empowered centres in the political structure outside of the presidency. Raila Odinga, William Ruto, Uhuru Kenyatta, Martha Karua etc are all politicians who have elevated themselves to an almost equal footing, politically speaking, with the president himself.

And the change has not just been about personalities, typical of politics in Africa. Institutions have had a hand in it, too. The Kenyan parliament – which Barkan thinks is the strongest in SSA – with its committee system and relative autonomy from the executive has been at the forefront of checking the powers of the executive in general and the presidency in particular. The new constitution reflects this new equilibrium condition.

The new constitution also empowers the judiciary, previously seen as a rubber stamp institution in the pocket of the president. Although nominations to the institution has gotten off on a rocky start, it appears that the law society of Kenya and the Judicial  Service Commission might be strong enough to (self)regulate judges on the bench, regardless of who appoints them.

I am cautiously optimistic.

the African Union and its problems

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The just concluded AU summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia had two key problems to address: the political crisis in Ivory Coast and the legal battles involving six Kenyans who face charges at the ICC. So far the continental body appears to have failed on its attempts to address both problems.

In the Ivory Coast, Mr. Gbagbo’s camp has already declared that the five person panel formed by the AU is dead on arrival unless Burkinabe president, Compraore is dropped. The Daily Nation reports:

The president of Burkina Faso, named on a high-level African Union panel tasked with settling Cote d’Ivoire’s leadership crisis, is “not welcome” in this country, a top ally of strongman Laurent Gbagbo said here yesterday.

And in Kenya, the political football involving the setting up of a credibly clean local judicial system to try perpetrators of the 2007-8 post election violence diminished the prospects of a deferral from the UN Security Council. Kenya must guarantee that it will try the suspects for the ICC to consider a deferral. It does not help that the appointment of high members of its judiciary, including the chief justice, the attorney general and the director of public prosecutions has already been soiled by political grandstanding.

power-play in public appointments in kenya

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It emerges that Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga wanted President Kibaki to appoint a foreigner to head the judiciary. This can only mean one of two things: either (i) Mr. Odinga wants a super clean judiciary that will interpret the law in a disinterested manner or (ii) he thinks that the Kibaki-PNU faction is so strong that they will be able to buy off any local judge appointed to head the judiciary.

Because Mr. Odinga or his allies could potentially find themselves facing the judiciary in the future, I don’t think it is the former concern that is motivating the Premier. It must be the case that he realizes he has no way of locally dealing with the Kibaki-PNU faction, except through name-and-shame games and other sanctions involving foreigners. To compensate for the fact that he cannot contain the Kibaki-PNU coalition politically, Mr. Odinga is hoping he can do so via independent institutions.

What does this mean for Kenyan democracy? It means that it is not yet Uhuru. As long as there is a faction in the country that can do whatever it wants under a “wapende wasipende” mentality Kenya will remain a democracy in name only. True democracy will only come once all factions involved realize that the country belongs to all Kenyans and that they cannot get away with subordinating the interests of regular Kenyans to those of a few ethnic chiefs.

The man to blame for all of this is Kalonzo Musyoka. Mr. Musyoka is bad for Kenyan democracy because he is the all important median veto player, but lacks principles. Because his support gives either side the needed majority he remains the biggest stumbling block to any compromise arrangements that might ensure that regular Kenyans truly benefit from the new constitutional dispensation. Kibaki does not need to negotiate with Odinga as long as he has Kalonzo on his side. But given Mr. Odinga’s political clout, good and lasting institutions will only emerge if Kibaki and Odinga arrive at a self-enforcing arrangement.

Mr. Musyoka initially campaigned against the new constitution. Mr. Musyoka has been at the forefront of efforts to protect perpetrators of the 2007-8 post-elections violence that killed over 1300 Kenyans. Mr. Musyoka continues to stand on the wrong side of Kenya’s reform agenda. Given the recent comments from Francis Atwoli, the trade union leader, it is encouraging that Kenyans are cognizant of these facts.

president kibaki’s weird move

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President Kibaki has done quite a few good things for Kenya. He will be remembered as the president who did away with the oligarchic constitution that Kenya inherited from the Brits at independence.

That said, his recent move to appoint constitutional office holders in the justice system without consultation raises serious questions about his commitment to Kenya’s reform agenda. And it is not simply about his failure to consult the ODM in making the appointments. Mr. Kibaki ignored due process stated in the constitution. Appointments to the judiciary are required to originate from the judicial service commission.

Also, why appoint Ruto’s lawyer to be director of public prosecutions? Didn’t anyone at Harambee House see the obvious questions that would arise? As Macharia Gaitho notes:

If the Kenya Government – or rather President Kibaki’s PNU axis – is to convince anyone that it has the will to establish a truly independent local tribunal, then it could not do much worse than nominate a lawyer for one of the Ocampo Six as Director of Public Prosecutions.

kosgey resigns

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Tinderet MP and Minister of Industrialization Henry Kosgey has resigned. Mr. Kosgey is being charged with 12 counts of abuse of office and faces a maximum of 120 years in prison if convicted. In the latest case of fraud linked to the Minister, vehicles older than 8 years old were illegally imported into the country under his direction.

Only a few weeks ago Mr. Kosgey was among five prominent Kenyan politicians and a radio host named as suspects by the ICC prosecutor Luis Ocampo in relation to the post election violence in Kenya (2007-08) that killed 1300 and displaced 300,000.

Mr. Kosgey is Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s pointman in the Rift Valley and is the current chairman of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

More on this here.

jkia has free internet!

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The last time I had free wireless at an airport was in Hartford, Connecticut. I am therefore absolutely delighted to be able to blog as I wait for my flight to London tonight. I am not looking forward to the long hours in pressurized steel tubes – as one of my pals calls them – and the long layover in the infamous Heathrow. Although there is no chance of missing my connecting flight to San Francisco, I am bracing myself for the possibility of not having my luggage when I arrive there.

Already missing home. It has been a fun one month, most of which I spent in rural Kenya. Being in Nairobi has been fun too. I am glad I got to be here for the referendum, the promulgation of the new constitution and the release of the 2009 national census results. Kenya is a lot of things, but lately it has been trying tooth and nail to put its best foot forward, the al-Bashir fiasco notwithstanding (I am one of those optimists who are hoping that Kenya was playing smart diplomacy by allowing the genocidaire president to come here in exchange of his honoring the January 9th secession referendum for Southern Sudan).

constitution making in Kenya and the noise around it

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Muthoni Wanyeki has this cool piece on the ongoing debate over the draft constitution.

I share in her surprise at how low the church has decided to sink in its opposition to Kadhi courts and the so called abortion clause in the draft constitution. Firstly, abortions are but a symptom of greater social problems (marital rape, poor sex education policies, the church’s intransigence over contraceptives, etc etc). People do not carry out abortions because they are baby-killers. Can someone please point this out to these men of God?

In any case personal morality is not a province of the state. People’s “moral failings” are a reflection of the church’s inability to instill in them the values that they consider to be ideal. Sending millions to their graves and creating even more orphans on the premise that God does not endorse the use of contraceptives is simply absurd. If I ran the Daily Nation I would print rates of contraceptive use and fertility rates in Rome, Canterbury and the great evangelical centres of America in the front page to make this point.

I say this knowing that Kenyan conservatism is not necessarily because of Christianity. But we don’t hear traditional elders screaming about these two issues. If the church wants to remain relevant it mus realize that before we all go to heaven we have to live through real life on earth.

And on the issue of Kadhi’s Courts. Who cares? Doesn’t the current constitution have this already? And isn’t it ironic that the same people who want to legislate personal morality on religious grounds are the ones opposed to Muslims having the option to use an Islamic judicial system? And do they even know that these courts would still be subordinate to the country’s secular court system?

president kibaki to resign and call for fresh elections

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Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki has announced that he will resign and call snap elections. Mr. Kibaki cited wrangling within the cabinet and the failure to tackle corruption and poor governance as his main reasons for seeking a fresh mandate from Kenyans. It is unclear which party ticket the president will run on since his party, the PNU, has since disintegrated into its constituent coalition partners. The Prime Minister’s party, the ODM, are currently holding a meeting before issuing a statement in response to the president’s move.

Read more here