Tanzania elbows Kenya to become darling of US

• As Kikwete claims the honour of being the first African head of state to visit White House, the growing estrangement between America and Kibaki’s regime is likely to pile further pressure on the troubled Grand Coalition Government.

Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete this week claimed the honour of being the first African head of state to visit President Obama’s White House, in a move that will further highlight Kenya’s diminished status on the international scene.

The visit came on the back of a public snub by President Obama, who has opted to make Ghana the destination of his first visit to Sub-Saharan Africa.

The growing estrangement between the US and Kenya is likely to pile further pressure on the troubled Grand Coalition Government.

A statement from the White House Press office following Mr Obama’s meeting with Mr Kiwete read: “The President [Obama] and President Kikwete met and had a valuable discussion on a range of issues. President Obama expressed his appreciation for the close bilateral relationship the United States shares with Tanzania”. 

Exchanged views

Presidents Kikwete and Obama exchanged views on approaches to enhancing the US-Tanzanian partnership, improving development policy in the fields of health, education and agriculture, and working with other partners in the region to solve some of the most pressing conflicts on the African continent. 

They expressed a desire to work together to solve common problems in the future.

This was the first African head of state to visit President Obama at the White House.

According to a veteran diplomat, Mr Bethwell Kiplagat, Mr Obama’s decision not to visit Kenya should serve as a warning to the Grand Coalition to get its act together.

“If I was planning to visit someone’s house and I realised that they are not getting on well, I would think twice about going ahead with the visit,” he says.

Mr Kiplagat says the calculation from the White House was that President Obama might have been embarrassed on visiting Kenya at a time when the discord between coalition partners Orange Democratic Movement and Party of National Unity has made the coalition erratic and unpredictable.

“I am sure they (Americans) are sending a message on the need for unity. It is clear that when you are wrangling, quarrelling and contradicting each other as a government, your effectiveness is markedly reduced,” he says.

The frosty relations between Kenya and a number of its key Western allies represents a sharp turnaround for a nation described by the US pointman to the continent Johnnie Carson as the “keystone” country in the region.

In 2003, when President Kibaki led the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) in ending Kanu’s 40 years in power, Kenya was regarded as the toast of the continent.

The peaceful nature of the transition and the overwhelming mandate secured by Narc won the government admiration from around the world and instantly seemed to have repaired the strained relations between Kenya and the West.

President Kibaki and First Lady Lucy Kibaki were treated to a White House state banquet, a rare honour for an African leader.

Former US President Bill Clinton, when asked which world leader he admired most in a television interview in early 2003, named President Kibaki for his introduction of free primary education.

The good times did not last. Allegations of corruption in the new administration, particularly the Anglo Leasing scandal, made Western donors wary of dealing with the government.