How dynastic ambitions imperil Kenya’s democracy

In her new book, Democratic Dynasties (April 2016), the Harvard-trained professor of politics, Kanchan Chandra, re-launches the prickly theoretical debate on whether dynastic politics violates democracy. Chandra’s main point is that far from violating democracy, dynastic politics can also reinforce some aspects of democracy.

The on-going political blitz against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is transforming Kenya into an exception to Chandra’s thesis.

In 2013, both Jubilee Alliance and the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) emerged as fine coalitions of political families (“patricians”) and non-dynastic self-made leaders (“plebeians”) at all levels of national politics.

All this is changing fast and furiously. Ahead of 2017, smouldering dynastic ambitions threaten to violate democracy and undermine the tenets of Kenya’s Constitution. The dreadful idea of “power-sharing by dominant dynasties” is creeping in as the newest political thought on Kenyan politics.

What has whipped dynastic ambitious to a fever pitch is the decision by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) to drop its case against Deputy President William Ruto. Some established dynasties fear that the ICC decision has paved the way for Mr Ruto – touted as “the hustler” because of his plebeian roots – to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2022.

The macabre assault on the IEBC is a Trojan horse to rig Mr Ruto out of the Kenyatta succession equation. Three “centres of dynastic power” are closing in on Kenya’s electoral commission: The Odinga dynasty, the Moi dynasty and heirs of the now defunct British Empire in Africa. However, space does not allow for an in-depth analysis of the third “dynastic centre” jostling to shape the future of power in Kenya.

Before 2013, the three pegged their hopes on the ICC convicting both President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Ruto. But this “decapitation strategy” suffered a setback in December 2014 when the ICC set Mr Kenyatta free. Hope then rested on a split decision by the ICC in which Mr Ruto would be jailed, forcing Mr Kenyatta to replace him preferably with a dynastic appointee.

Freeing Mr Ruto has touched off an epic disintegration of the paradigms and strategies of powerful dynasties. Muddling the electoral game in 2017 is the newest strategy in town.

ODINGA DYNASTY

Read my lips, after Chief Justice Mutunga retires in June, the on-going assault on IEBC will quickly morph into a blitz on the “integrity” and “neutrality” of the courts and national security. But the strategies and endgames of dynasties differ.

The logic of the Odinga dynasty is a “revolution” possibly backed by civil society and external actors along the lines of the “Arab Spring”. In tandem with the “Kenyan Spring” gambit, the scions of the Odinga dynasty in Capitol Hill are also pushing for a Serena-type “dialogue” to override the Constitution and create a dynastic power-sharing dispensation as an upgrade of the conflict-ridden Kibaki-Raila Grand Coalition.

On June 24, 2014, and more recently on March 10, 2016, Raila wrote to President Kenyatta calling for a “structured national dialogue”, a poisoned chalice by any measure.

The Raila-led blitz on the IEBC is calibrated to get Mr Kenyatta to capitulate to a Serena-style dialogue. The Odingas are counting on the backing of donor-funded NGO operatives, business interests and cartels.

The Moi dynasty’s logic is its return to the pinnacle of Kenyan politics. At this point, it is not keen on either destroying or disrupting the Kikuyu-Kalenjin détente, the pillar of Jubilee power.

It seeks to replace Mr Ruto with a Moi scion or a candidate acceptable to perhaps Kenya’s wealthiest political dynasty. The ICC’s failure to convict Mr Ruto has threatened to lock the Moi dynasty out of power. The battleground in this do-or-die battle for the soul of the Kalenjin Nation is ethnic.

The battle is following a three-track strategy. First, the Moi camp still hopes it can replace Mr Ruto in Jubilee with a Kanu candidate before 2017.

Mr Ruto’s men are publicly accusing Kanu of underwriting an integrity war depicting the Deputy President as irredeemably corrupt as a ploy to get Mr Kenyatta to drop and replace him with a Kanu favourite.

The second is a 2017 election strategy. Kanu’s plan is to wrest more electoral seats than the Ruto camp in the Rift Valley. This will present Mr Kenyatta with a fait accompli: It is either Kanu and Moi or no alliance with the Kalenjin bloc! Kanu hoped to launch this strategy with a bang in the Kericho Senate by-election in March.

The third is a long-range strategy. The aim is to force the 2017 election into a run-off to ensure that the Jubilee duo (Kenyatta and Ruto) does not clinch a first round victory and shut the doors for a Moi dynasty heir in 2022.

In the wheeler-dealer coalition building for the run-off, Kanu hopes to seize the chance to weaken Mr Ruto’s grip on power and secure a place for a Moi in a re-negotiated multi-ethnic political order.

POLITICAL TRUCES

It is in this context that on May 12, Kanu announced that it has officially joined Cord’s protest campaign to push for the overhaul of IEBC.
This ushers in a new phase in the flighty political truces between the Moi and Odinga dynasties.

This harkens back to 1994, when the elder Odinga, Jaramogi Odinga, one of Daniel arap Moi’s most formidable adversaries, declared that: “Moi is like a giraffe: he sees very far,” a powerful metaphor on Moi’s aptness to survive in the cold-bloodedness of Kenya’s Darwinian political terrain.

In March, ODM covertly backed Kanu in the Kericho by-election. Now the Moi camp has strategically thrown its lot behind Raila. A politically negotiated IEBC in which Kanu has a seat, and perhaps sway, is critical for the success of the Moi dynasty’s complex political game-plan in the Rift Valley and at the national stage.

The Odinga-Moi axis shares the dynastic strategy of running Mr Ruto out of town and out of power. It is highly doubtful, however, that the two centres of power share the vision of a Kenyatta-Odinga-Moi dynastic triad to monopolise power in a post-2017 order that excludes Kenya’s plebeians, the sons of Wanjiku.

As political dynasties close in on the constitutionally established electoral commission, Kenya’s choices are clear: It is either the law or the perils of dynastic horse-trading.

Professor Peter Kagwanja is the Chief Executive of Africa Policy Institute [email protected]