Kenya: Will This Marriage of Convenience Work? Time Will Tell

Kenya: Will This Marriage of Convenience Work? Time Will Tell

http://allafrica.com/stories/200803071069.html?page=2

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The Nation (Nairobi)
OPINION8 March 2008Posted to the web 7 March 2008

Arno Kopecky

Can real power be shared? Now that the battlefield has finally moved from the shamba to Parliament, Kenyans are about to find out if it is possible. The pen has once again vanquished the sword, using constitutional fine print to spell out the exact powers (and perks) of a new leadership. Where before there was one, soon there will be two.
This division will occur on two levels. One is the personal leadership embodied by the Kibaki-Odinga entity; and second, the ministerial chop shop being represented by the PNU-ODM coalition.
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Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Well actually, yes. It's quite common. Mr Walter Lindner, Germany's ambassador to Kenya, has recently done a lot of talking about the example his own country set in 2005, when a tight election provoked the grand coalition now managing Europe's largest economy.
"Coalitions are never love affairs or about sympathy," Mr Lindner told the Press. Grand coalitions in particular, he said, "are necessary when you have a national challenge that requires social and political cohesion Germany needed to reform its pension and social welfare system. Kenya is bogged down by the need for constitutional and land reforms."
And what, you were wondering, is the difference between a coalition and a grand coalition? Just about all governments involve some kind of the former, after all - PNU itself is more of a coalition than a party, as was the Narc-Rainbow coalition that preceded it. But the word grand implies that the two biggest parties in the country unite to form the government, which is rare.
In normal circumstances, one of these will settle for the Opposition, while the other collaborates with smaller parties to get its parliamentary majority.
Normal coalitions are the product of politics-as-usual, whereas it often takes extreme circumstances to produce a grand coalition. The UK produced a grand coalition during the first World War, for instance, perceiving the need to unite against a common threat.
Austria and Bulgaria, which are currently ruled by grand coalitions, use them to marginalize extreme-wing parties with racist inclinations. The German and Kenyan examples both come from a disputed presidential election that produced two claimants to victory.
Germany's crisis, though non-violent, also took two months to resolve. The nitty gritty of how to cut departments (the German equivalent of ministries) in half "took 80 per cent of the negotiation time," according to Mr Lindner. "They went department by department, then put the agreement down in a 120-page agreement."
In Kenya, ODM and PNU have decided to keep the individual ministries whole (that is, under the leadership of one or the other party). Rather than share a particular portfolio, the ministries have been grouped into clusters of similar relevance; each cluster will then be divided between the two sides.
The idea here is that there are a certain number of ministries that have to do with the economy, another group that bear on security, others on governance, etcetera; ODM and PNU will control the same number of ministries in each of these clusters.
Of course, just how smoothly this theory will be laid out in practice remains to be seen. One pressing question is if PNU will relinquish any of the plum ministries it has already nabbed.
But on to stage two is where Mr Odinga and President Kibaki are working out the delicate details of who gets to call which shots. Here are two men who days ago could not be left alone in a room - how can they possibly share a throne?
Again, we have Mr Lindner's encouraging reminder that political partnerships need prudence to work, not love. The division of a country's top post into two offices - president and prime minister - may be new to Kenya, but it's hardly a novel concept worldwide.
Wikipedia lists 72 countries that follow some version of this model. These break down into two categories: a semi-presidential system and a parliamentary republic.
The semi-presidential system gives substantive powers to both the president and the prime minister. Take France, home of Europe's oldest presidency. The inventors of democracy are now operating under their fifth constitution, so Kenya needn't feel bad about working on a second.
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What's more, each of France's constitutions has varied in the powers they allocate to the president and prime minister. The first president of France was Napoleon, which gives you some idea of how many miles a man can take an inch.
Today's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is a flashy type with a knack for grabbing headlines; but in practice he isn't much more powerful than his prime minister, Francois Fillon.
True, it was Sarkozy who appointed him; but like Kibaki, Sarkozy isn't allowed to fire his prime minister, and like Raila, Fillon is the one who controls the day to day workings of the legislature.

Even in the so-called West, personality often decides which office holds the most power in a semi-presidential system. It's a pretty safe bet, for instance, that Vladimir Putin is still in charge of Russia, despite moving his briefcase from the president's office to the prime minister's.
In a parliamentary republic, by contrast, real power is explicitly legislated into the prime minister's hands. The president's post is mostly ceremonial. I first discovered this during a visit to Iceland three years ago, when I felt briefly important after securing an interview with president Olafur Grimsson. It was a short-lived ego trip.
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I soon learned that Mr Grimsson's primary job was to expound on his country's wonderfulness for people like me, in the hopes we would repeat his praise back home.
Like most men in his position (or women, like Ireland's Mary McAleese), he spoke several languages, hosted wonderful parties, and aside from vetoing a single law during 12 years in office, had no impact on national policy.
So where does that leave Kenya? With a semi-presidential system, whose president appears on paper to have the edge on his prime minister, Kibaki's biggest advantage is the fact that he's still the person who decides whether bills become law or wind up in the dustbin. His authority over the armed forces is a pretty good poker chip, too.
But this is Kenya, where personality matters at least as much as the letter of the law, and there's no question that Raila's personality looms much larger than his counterpart's. ODM also has about twice PNU's number of parliamentary seats, on top of which they own practically every mayor in the country.

And let's not forget that either party can walk out of this coalition at any moment and force a new election. Should that come to pass, Kibaki won't be allowed to run for a third term, a restriction which needn't worry Raila.
For now, however, the indications are that both sides want to give this thing a shot. After all, a prime ministerial office has been a goal of Raila's at least since the Bomas Agreement, even if he didn't mean it for himself. But it's his now, and it will be up to him to carve out enough space for a big man.
Only time and some hard negotiating will tell how smoothly the new ship sails. For as Wednesday's Daily Nation announced on the front page, a new Kenya is indeed being born. Whatever happens next, let's hope it doesn't resemble the old one too much.

A triumph for Kenya

A triumph for Kenya

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3508127.ece

It sets an example that others in the continent should follow
Zimbabwe's announcement that it will exclude American and all European election monitors except Russians, while welcoming observers from Iran, Venezuela, China and Nigeria, makes it clear in advance that President Mugabe is intent on rigging the vote this month to ensure his re-election. His cynical observation that “our friends will judge us” has been likened by foreign diplomats to a “coalition of the compliant”. But Mr Mugabe may have misjudged one of the 32 nations invited, headed by Sudan and Libya, on whose reputation for electoral corruption he is relying. Kenya may indeed have attempted, like the others, to cheat its people of a fair vote - with disastrous consequences. But Kenya's announcement on Thursday that President Kibaki will form a government of national unity, sharing power with Raila Odinga, the opposition leader cheated of victory, is a heartening example of political sense prevailing over tribalism, common good over personal ambition.
The new Government is a triumph of political pragmatism. It does not reverse the results of December's discredited election, as that would have led to a government loss of face and inflamed the tribal rivalry between the Kikiyus, loyal to Mr Kibaki, and the Kalenjin, loyal to his opponent. Instead, an enhanced post of prime minister has been created for Mr Odinga, which gives him power to “co-ordinate and supervise” the Government and prevents his dismissal except by a vote of no-confidence in Parliament. This power-sharing agreement goes beyond what Mr Kibaki was at first willing to concede and falls short of the admission, which Mr Odinga wanted, that he was robbed of victory. On Tuesday it will be debated in Parliament, and, at Mr Kibaki's urging, will almost certainly become law.
Kenya has pulled itself back from the brink, but only just in time. The disputed election triggered atavistic tribal animosities, exacerbated by longstanding disputes over land, wealth and migration, that quickly led to a seemingly unstoppable cycle of violence. The settling of old scores, the attempts at “ethnic cleansing” and the killings motivated by jealousy or vengeance have left more than 1,000 people dead and some 300,000 refugees homeless. The economy has been all but ruined, with tourism and agriculture especially hard-hit and losses totalling an estimated $1 billion. The turmoil in East Africa's transport and regional hub has spread far beyond Kenya's borders, paralysing trade and the economy in Uganda, Rwanda and much of Central Africa.
Even after the power-sharing deal, the tribal vendettas will be hard to stop. Eight people were killed in separate attacks around the country yesterday, and the memories of lynchings and machete attacks will keep relations between the tribes tense for years to come.
Nevertheless, Kenya's politicians deserve credit for belatedly understanding the common danger to everyone and reining in irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric. One man in particular must take credit for the outcome: Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, whose discreet and patient diplomacy and willingness to help Kenyans to find their own solution rival any of his achievements while in office. The new mood of compromise and reconciliation may take much underpinning. But it is a credit to Africa, and a standing rebuke to Mr Mugabe.

Why Kenya is critical to Africa's future

Why Kenya is critical to Africa's future
Peace in Africa hinges on regional integration.
By Francis Kornegay
from the March 7, 2008 edition

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0307/p09s02-coop.html

Johannesburg, South Africa - The postelection crisis that killed nearly 1,500 people in Kenya is now in remission.
But before the world turns its attention elsewhere, it's important to realize that the conflict in Kenya that ended as a result of US-reinforced mediation by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is a variation of a greater African political dysfunction, one that happens to be the bane of the continent's development.
There is, in fact, a whole cluster of factors contributing to unstable governance to be considered. And if Africa is to attain sustainable stability, the core challenge, epitomized in different ways by the experiences of many African nations, is the continent's propensity for authoritarian executive dictatorships, or absolute monarchies.
If US and Western policies toward Africa are to have any effect, the West will have to make strengthening regional integration a priority.
African hegemonies are often reinforced by hard-line ruling cliques of a narrowly based ethnic, subethnic, clan, or regional nature. Their approaches to power can only be described as all-or-nothing. Forget about the checks-and-balances of an empowered parliament or internal democratization within a ruling party. These forms of political decentralization that Western countries associate with democracy are generally either absent or insufficiently developed to offset unchecked executive rule, despite the veneer of elections.
Indeed, the tendency of poll rigging across Africa has virtually brought the continent back to square one on the question of democracy. Kenya will have to seriously reengineer its constitution to undo the destabilizing concentrations of power and resources within narrowly based, elite backed, kleptocratic regimes. Amending the presidential system to include a prime minister with executive powers linked to the opposition's majority, is one example of such changes.
Another dimension of the Kenyan power struggle has been the opposition's call for federalism; a demand reflecting the marginalization of regions of the country falling outside the incumbent ruling party's power base. This is a problem resonating across the continent. One example is Northern Uganda, long terrorized by the Lord's Resistance Army.
The discovery of oil has become yet another incentive for Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni to perpetuate his unending presidency while manipulating access to land in order to maximize his power.
The stakes are particularly high for East Africa, since its leaders are committed to transforming the five-nation East African Community (consisting of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda) into a political federation by 2015.
Even though Africa's leaders are increasingly preoccupied with a 'United States of Africa,' little attention has been paid to this East African economic federal initiative. The challenge there is that all five countries may have to let federalism, play a central role in managing intra- and inter-state relations.
So all eyes are on Kenya, where that federalizing process can be seen in the beginnings of its recent resolution.
Because Kenya is the economic hub of greater east Africa encompassing southern Sudan, its example is critical to the region. The landlocked east-central African hinterland depends on Kenya's port of Mombasa; a dependency highlighted by the extent to which Kenya's turmoil disrupted economic activity throughout the region, in Uganda especially.
As futuristic as this scenario may seem, east Africa's medium-to long-term security hinges on such a process given the demographic revolution exploding throughout the region.
Uganda is expected to have a population of 103 million by 2050, with 187 million in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There will be 183 million in Ethiopia. The current political map of the entire continent will not manage such an expansion within the confines of current colonially inherited boundaries.
Regional integration is East Africa's – and the continent's – only hope for peace, security, and stability. If US and Western policies toward Africa are to have any relevance in fostering stability, greater emphasis will have to go toward strengthening regional integration as a corollary to effective governance.
This should include encouraging African public policy research and debate on integration options factoring in intra-state democratic reforms. The challenge confronting the continent on this matter is huge: Where are the centers dedicated to studying African integration? Yet Africa's security interest depends on this deficit being redressed sooner rather than later.
• Francis Kornegay is a senior researcher at the Center for Policy Studies in Johannesburg.