Why is President unable to keep his temper of late?

President Uhuru Kenyatta addresses resident of Taita Taveta County in Voi on March 11, 2017. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The UhuRuto ticket was, therefore, an act of defiance against the wishes of Kibaki’s inner circle.
  • Uhuru and Ruto invested in a balkanising message to create a siege mentality in their core support.
  • Even after they took power, Kenyatta and Ruto never gained sufficient legitimacy as would have allowed them to govern comfortably.
  • Kenyatta’s response to the needs of the Kikuyu led to the crystallisation of his status as a prince of the Kikuyu nation.

In the recent past, President Uhuru Kenyatta has been involved in a public display of rage, leaving behind divided opinion as to whether it was appropriate for the President to display such strong emotion in public. Why is the President so irritable?

Recent revelations by Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko have provided information that leads to the conclusion that President Mwai Kibaki wanted Musalia Mudavadi and not Uhuru Kenyatta to succeed him.

The UhuRuto ticket was, therefore, an act of defiance against the wishes of Kibaki’s inner circle. Besides not being the favourite of the departing President, Kenyatta and Ruto faced cases before the International Criminal Court at the time.

While the cases may have contributed to the unattractiveness that Kenyatta and Ruto faced from the Kibaki corner, the cases also created the desperation that motivated the two to run for President, irrespective of what Kibaki thought about it. The two hoped that if they won the elections, they could then use the Kenyan State to shield themselves against the ICC.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

Running for president in those circumstances created a situation in which Kenyatta was tying the country’s fate with his own personal problems with the ICC.

Running pariah ticket, that left them unable to credibly engage on policy terms, Kenyatta and Ruto built their campaign on two key approaches.

First, they invested in a balkanising message to create a siege mentality in their core support. Second, they resorted to spectacular performance, approaching politics as theatre.

What came to be referred to as a sleek campaign was evidence of the success with which the UhuRuto ticket was successful in creating theatre as politics. Spectacular performance also characterised their campaign promises: Laptops, bullet trains, new stadiums, standard gauge railway, and massive irrigation schemes.

Even after they took power, Kenyatta and Ruto never gained sufficient legitimacy as would have allowed them to govern comfortably. Further, the continuing ICC cases signified an unknown future for them and the country.

Partly as compensation for their legitimacy deficit, but also to fulfill their campaign promises, UhuRuto continued on the trajectory of spectacular performance which had already produced rewards, including landing them the presidency.

SOBBING IN CELEBRATION

As a result, theatre became, and has remained, a key governance approach since Jubilee took power. With Ruto hardly having dried his eyes after sobbing in celebration of Jubilee’s victory, another early display of theatre occurred when Kenyatta and Ruto turned up dressed in identical white shirts with rolled up sleeves and red ties, to announce the first cabinet.

There have been other examples of theatre, including such mundane acts as eating in seedy kiosks, as a way of laying the unlikely claim that they are the same as the ordinary citizens who eat in those places.

Faced with the threat of the unknown when he was required to make what ended up being the last appearance before the ICC, Kenyatta treated the country to one of its greatest displays of theatre, convening a parliamentary session to perform a ritual of handing over power to Ruto, as he left the country to face his accusers.

Although legally meaningless, the ritual was nevertheless necessary. It was an act of self-validation which also stole the thunder from the adversity that the President faced, as the first serving Head of State to face criminal charges.

This elaborate show, which ended with a road show when the President returned from The Hague, laid down a narrative of triumph against the malevolent and imperialist enemies that had dared to falsely accuse the Kenyan leadership in the first place.

FILLING VACUUM

But what does this have to do with the fact that the President seems unable to keep his temper of late?

By the circumstances of his birth, Kenyatta is not an ordinary person. He is the closest that Kenya comes to royalty. Although a blessing, his royal status is also a burden to Kenyatta. As an example, when the Kenyan State failed to protect the Kikuyu nation as it faced genocidal slaughter in the Rift Valley during the post-election violence, the burden of filling the vacuum was immediately privatised to the Kenyatta family.

What was understood as an act of saving the Kikuyu nation ended up being represented as crimes against humanity against Kenyatta before the ICC.

Kenyatta’s response to the needs of the Kikuyu led to the crystallisation of his status as a prince of the Kikuyu nation. Largely because of his royalty, Kenyatta’s political career has since blossomed and he is now a republican president, while retaining his royal status in the Kikuyu nation.

SPECTACULAR ACTS

Royalty comes with expectations. First, theatre is integral to royalty and, even if often inappropriate for the occasion, Kenyatta must periodically perform spectacular acts to maintain his place. Further, Jubilee’s inner insecurities also necessitate periodic displays of spectacle as governance.

Second, while royalty engenders a habit of unquestioning obedience, it comes into conflict with a larger republican context which does not necessarily recognise Kenyatta’s princely position.

The establishment of county governments has created a local layer of political control that was previously non-existent, which limits direct access to the electorate by national-level actors.

Presidential candidates must now negotiate with governors and MCAs, or risk their efforts being undermined on the ground. It is not a coincidence that the President’s wrath has been against two opposition governors.

Feeling too important to negotiate, Kenyatta’s rage in Turkana and Mombasa was a display of fictive anger against local actors who claim a say on who gets to access the electorate in their areas. His tongue-lash against local Turkana people showed how entitled our President has become.

He told the locals that he had nothing to lose even if he was not re-elected. His anger was an act of theatre by a President, long used to obedience, now having to address an unexpected challenge to his authority.

Kenyatta hopes that if he packs in sufficient displays of rage, county governments that oppose his re-election will simply evaporate.