Amina Mohamed urges re-evaluation of Kenya's neighbours over her loss at AU polls

Foreign Affairs CS Amina Mohamed now wants Kenya’s neighbours re-evaluated for abandoning her during polls to pick the AU Commission chairman in Addis Ababa.

The re-evaluation, she says, should establish why Kenya’s neighbours, whom she did not name, decamped to vote for other candidates in the Monday election.

In the first press conference since she lost to Chadian foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat, Ms Mohamed on Tuesday said some of the pledges made by the unnamed neighbouring countries were “deceptive.”

“Things fell apart at the last round,” she told journalists in Addis.

“I think the fear from some that maybe we were going to get it (led to this). So they probably withdrew their support.”

LESSONS

She said Kenya should draw lessons from the loss.

“Are we seen as a friend or a threat?” she told journalists, adding that “appearances are deceptive.”

“I think we are very honest people, so it is difficult to deal with deceptive people. Going forward, it is a good lesson to learn.

"If we ever vied for a continental position, we have to take all that into consideration and probably pick someone who speaks more French than English for the office.”

Ms Mohamed was smarting from a defeat from a man few expected to get the seat.

All along, she had sought votes across Africa and President Uhuru Kenyatta had sent emissaries to 53 countries seeking the vote.

UGANDA

While members of the East African Community and other countries in the neighbourhood pledged to vote for her, she fell from the race in the sixth round.

She collected 25 votes against Mahamat’s 28.

And moments after the results were announced, it emerged that Djibouti, Burundi and Uganda had decamped to vote for the Chadian candidate.

Ms Mohamed said she believed the countries, which she did not mention, had other interests that made them look elsewhere at the hour of need.

“I think they were interests that we, as a country, we should not actually be pursuing. We are pretty comfortable with where we are because of the honest votes across the continent that we needed.

"As for the rest, I think there will be a lot of soul-searching and self-reflection going forward.”

FRANCOPHONE

The Chadian candidate became the fourth AU Commission chairperson to come from Francophone countries.

From the outset, it appeared to be the strength of the Francophone countries against the Anglophone.

But National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale blamed civil society groups for bringing up the International Criminal Court (ICC) matter at the AU.

“Our friends who we had issues with as far as the Rome Statute and the ICC was concerned were back in Addis,” he said.

ICC CASES

“There were so many civil society groups, we know them…they were a number of them. They felt very uncomfortable with having a Kenyan candidate winning the prestigious position and of course our reform agenda.”

Kenya has been one of the fiercest critics of the ICC since the court indicted Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto.

Ms Mohamed successfully lobbied the AU to pass a resolution demanding that no sitting head of state be arrested and handed over to the ICC.

The court has since dropped the Kenyan charges. But the wave of criticism has grown to a point where some members like South Africa, Burundi and Gambia want out of the Rome Statute, the formative law of the ICC.