Barack Obama visit to intensify ‘politicisation’ of war on graft

There is an eerie feeling in the air that Kenya is losing the war on corruption. Paradoxically, anti-corruption has been intensely corrupted!

As an instrument in electoral competition, anti-corruption is a political war by another name — fought within and between the various elite factions vying for state power.

Globally, scholars have dubbed this distortion as “politicisation of corruption”. In their study, titled: ‘It’s the politics, stupid!’: The politicisation of anti-corruption in Italy (2013), Salvatore Sberna and Alberto Vannucci define the distortion as an increase in the polarisation of opinions, interests, or values about judicial investigations and the extent to which this is strategically advanced towards the political debate by parties, political leaders and media.

On the whole, the politicisation of corruption projects seek to drive a wedge between the people and their elected governments, creating a conceptual binary of a “criminal government” pitted against a “victimised voter”. This “criminalisation” of African governments is a deliberate invention of the colonial prototype of a “benevolent government” and “criminal subjects/masses”.

Although corruption took a back-burner in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s inaugural speech on April 9, 2013, a year later he was struck mute by the perverseness of corruption in the system. On February 22, 2014, he publicly lamented that his office (Harambee) was a house of corruption. But what actually jolted him to act was the forced payment of Sh1.4 billion to Anglo-Leasing firms just before the issuing of the Eurobond in May 2014.

He quickly realised that corruption was the real threat to his government’s development agenda. In his address to the nation on New Year’s eve, he declared 2015 the year of “slaying the dragon of corruption”, warning that “the war on corruption must and will be won”. He launched perhaps Kenya’s most determined war “from above” against graft. His government ordered a fresh investigation into Anglo-Leasing, leading to significant prosecutions.

In his State of the Nation Address on March 24, 2015, Mr Kenyatta unveiled a list of 175 corruption suspects from the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) consisting of individuals in the government and the opposition alike.

In this war, there were no holy cows. On March 29, the President officially suspended Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Kimemia, four Cabinet secretaries (Felix Koskei, Davis Chirchir, Michael Kamau and Charity Ngilu), and a number of principal secretaries and other senior government officials.

Soon, the President and his advisors realised that his anti-corruption crusade was grinding to a halt. By May 26, the expiry of the 60 days ultimatum he had given, the EACC had only forwarded 21 cases, a mere 12 per cent, and only 19 people had been charged. Wheels were coming off Kenya’s anti-corruption architecture.

FOUGHT BACK

From the outset, anti-corruption was crystallising into a new dimension of political conflict fuelled by the imperatives of the next electoral competition.

The opposition fought back. On March 31, Cord MPs and senators tried to stop the list from being tabled in Parliament, but the speaker over-ruled them. Cord instructed its officials in the list of shame who included senior ODM officials, not to step aside. As a result, its leader, Raila Odinga, was hailed as “better in protecting” his loyalists than Kenyatta, whose supporters stepped aside and some faced charges.

Meanwhile, the Opposition hyped anti-corruption rhetoric, declaring that “Jubilee is too corrupt to rule”. Odinga even called for the government to resign and call a snap election because “the national system has collapsed and only fresh elections will save the country.” With this, corruption has become an ideology and the sharpest arrow in the Opposition’s quiver.

Moreover, the politicised war on corruption entered the shark tanks of business interests and rivalries where cabals affected by the changes in the government fought back.

The dilemma facing the government is what to do with powerful business moguls allied to former bureaucrats who have organised themselves into mafia-style cartels, penetrated and “taken over” the anti-corruption architecture and are holding the government hostage.

CRIED FOUL

Insiders in the corridors of power, these cabals are said to be running sophisticated “judicial syndicates” that enable the moguls to determine from the comfort of their offices or upper-market hotels those to be prosecuted and directing which judge to hear the case in order to produce the desired outcome — acquittal or conviction.

It is in this context that on June 9, 2015, ODM cried foul over what it said were plans by those “concerned in the fight” against corruption to remove the Director of Public Prosecutions, widely accused of having been captured by cabals.

There is unease within Jubilee that the war on corruption is undermining the ruling coalition’s sense of unity. The list of shame and claims of corruption involving the URP leadership have fuelled public perceptions of “corruption-prone” and “corruption-proof” zones within the coalition. A silent protest is manifesting itself in the voting patterns by URP legislators in Parliament who are also in the forefront of a new anti-corruption crusade against Jubilee leaders and bureaucrats.

As if the cup is destined to overflow, there is a deep feeling of betrayal by those who have stepped aside, been investigated or committed to trial by the DPP. The feeling is that the President has not protected them.

Within the corridors of power, it is no secret that some are determined to fight back, saying “I will not go down alone.”

With the visit by President Barack Obama raising the stakes, not even the President is immune to politicisation of anti-corruption in Kenya.

Deputy President William Ruto has already been a target of corruption allegations by the opposition and business cabals. Predictably, this time round, the salvo might be thrown farther into the President’s corner.

Prof Kagwanja is Chief Executive of the Africa Policy Institute