At last, good news from Kenya. Really?

There were huge sighs of relief this week when, under the watchful gaze of Kofi Annan, that consummate diplomat of UN fame, the President of Kenya, Mwaai Kibaki, and his rival in the much disputed elections of December 2007, Raila Odinga, finally signed an agreement to end their fight over the election results. It had not been a week without its drama. Frustrated with the slow pace of the negotiations, Odinga had earlier threatened to call back his supporters into the streets on Wednesday and the protest was called off at the last minute under pressure from Annan who was heading the mediation effort. And to no one’s great surprise the peace deal was clinched a few hours later.

This was an important and welcome development in resolving what had become a drawn out and internecine conflict. Elsewhere in Africa, in Nigeria to be precise, the election tribunal was handing down its verdict on yet another contested election result – that of President Umar Yar’Adua. Again, to no one’s great surprise the tribunal ruled that the president’s victory was valid notwithstanding the many and proven irregularities that characterised the plebiscite. Never mind the fact that the Chairman of the election tribunal had, a few days before the verdict, been elevated to the Supreme Court bench by the very president whose legitimacy he was adjudicating. Never mind the fact that at least six governorship election results and a host of other senatorial results (including that of the Senate President), contested for at the same time as the presidential election, have so far been annulled by the courts due to irregularities.

One does sense that the two completely different approaches to resolving a very similar problem resulted in a very similar result. The status quo in the presidential incumbency was retained although, particularly in the case of Kenya, with severe damage to the credibility and status of the incumbent. In all indications, for the moment at least, it looks like the Nigerian dispute will work its way to the supreme court for final judgement. But don’t hold your breathe, not yet anyway. The opposition candidates have been reported to be under severe pressure not to contest the tribunal’s ruling against them, regardless of the merits of their case and it is just possible that they may succumb to the pressure. Bearing in mind that the Chief Justice has also been a recent recipient of a highly coveted national honour, conferred by the very president whose legitimacy he will have to decide, the result of the appeal may well be a foregone conclusion.

Given the fact that the drama in the Nigerian election has still to be played out, let me hold my peace until a more opportune time and focus the rest of this piece on the Kenyan situation. In many respects and for many reasons, the outcome of Annan’s mediation effort must be a cause for celebration. Over a thousand lives lost, and still counting, a quarter of a million and more displaced in a short two months, an economy turned upside down and one can begin to appreciate the scale and enormity of the Kenyan tragedy. For what? One may ask. So that there can be a power sharing arrangement? So that Kibaki retains the presidency which, to all indications, he did not win? So that Odinga becomes a prime minister, a position which he never contested for in the first place? Give me a break, please!

What has happened in Kenya is no victory for good and is nothing to celebrate, truly and honestly. It is a travesty of justice and something which Africa, represented by Annan, Mkapa, and others on the mediation panel and the world, represented by George Bush and Condy Rice who played a pivotal role in brokering the power sharing deal, should be ashamed of instead of celebrating. I do not know whether I am being naïve or something, but would this solution have been celebrated anywhere else in the democratic world. Assuming that in the last elections in the US, George W Bush had been accused with some justification of rigging the election against John Kerry, and that Kerry’s people had taken to the streets in protest resulting in the death of a thousand Americans and displacement of a quarter of a million more, would the American public have celebrated a power sharing solution necessitating the amendment of their constitution to provide for a prime minister? Would the same solution be celebrated in Britain, or France, or Germany, or Russia? I doubt it very much.

So if the solution is not good enough for the democratic world, why should be it acceptable for Africa? Is it because standards for Africans are lower or is it because African are more tolerant of mediocrity and impropriety? It will no doubt be argued that Africans, after all have tolerated debilitating diseases like malaria and Aids, they have tolerated dictators and kleptomaniacs who have pillaged their once promising and prosperous nations. Africans have been victims of lengthy civil ways and have been subjected to genocide on a massive scale. So what is the big deal in a small matter of rigged elections? I will not fault such argument but somehow, sometime, somewhere we have to break from this mould of accepting mediocrity and fractured solutions. Otherwise the continent will remain forever steeped in underdevelopment and poverty.

In my view, the resolution reached in Kenya is likely to lead to paralysis of government. Whilst the actual mechanics of implementing the agreement are yet to be exposed, one may hazard the guess that the prime minister will form the government – appoint ministers and preside over administrative management of government while the president will approve the formation of government and the laws enacted by the government. Such a situation may work reasonably well in a situation where the president and the prime minister are working in consent and in respect of each other. If the two are antagonistic, as is likely to be the case in Kenya, government decision making will be severely paralysed or compromised. That is not an ideal or desirable situation.

Therefore far from resolving a critical situation, the adopted solution will have the effect of postponing the problem to a later date. Whether that will be good for Kenyans in the long term remains to be seen. Are there other options that could have been considered? I would say, yes. Could the situation in Kenya have been resolved differently? I would think so. The root of the Kenyan problem is that a sitting president is alleged to have manipulated election results in his favour. In the circumstances, the international effort must have focused on establishing the merits or otherwise of the allegations. If the allegations were proved, the president should have been asked to give way to the rightful winner of the contest. If the allegations could not be proved, the opposition should have been told to accept the results. If there was no conclusive evidence to establish the veracity of the allegations, a re-run of the elections should have been called.

That, to me, would have been the most appropriate solution and the fairest way of dealing with the situation. As it is, the outcome merely confirmed and strengthened existing precedents of election rigging with impunity by incumbents. I believe it is high time that our leaders were held to the same standards (not necessarily, the highest) of moral and ethical rectitude as would be expected anywhere else in the world. They should not be allowed to get away with brazen and criminal improprieties such as subverting the democratic wishes of their citizens. They should be called to order quickly and firmly if and when they stray from the straight and narrow path. Appeasing them, as apparently happened in Kenya is plainly wrong, counterproductive and without justification.

Admittedly, nothing is perfect in this world and there are no perfect solutions. But that should never be used as an excuse for not trying hard. I am not terribly sure to what extent a more appropriate solution was sought in Kenya. And I quite understanding the challenges that the mediators faced in their endeavours. However, when I saw the smirk on Kibaki’s face (which was intended to pass for a smile) as he shook hands with Odinga to seal their peace agreement, I could not help but feel that Kibaki had gotten away with murder. For me and for many others, I suspect, that was a very worrying moment and a sad indictment of international diplomacy.