Amina Mohamed upbeat following AU election loss
What you need to know:
- Though she repeated her stand that Kenya “will evaluate her relationships with her neighbours” following the hard-fought election, Ms Mohamed said that the vote’s outcome would not affect Kenya’s relations with other countries.
- The CS insisted Kenya’s relations with other countries should not be equated to how they voted in the election.
Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed on Wednesday described herself as “the mighty that can bear loss” following her lost bid to chair the African Union (AU) Commission.
And though she repeated her stand that Kenya “will evaluate her relationships with her neighbours” following the election, Ms Mohamed said the vote’s outcome would not affect Kenya’s relations with other countries.
“As the saying goes, anyone can deal with victory, but only the mighty can bear the loss,” she told a women-only luncheon at Nairobi InterContinental Hotel.
“I do not think we lost anything. We gained a lot. We made new friends. And now we need to evaluate our relationships and see where we go.”
She was speaking a day after arriving from the AU capital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where her Chadian counterpart Moussa Faki Mahamat had won the election after seven rounds of voting.
“My colleague Faki has a big job to unite Africa. I think the continent is very divided along language lines and regions,” Ms Amina said.
She insisted Kenya’s relations with other countries should not be equated to how they voted in the election.
“Our relations with other countries and our neighbours is not equivalent to those (AUC) elections. They are much more important and the elections will not affect them,” she told the women.
“The election was just a three months affair when we ran a wonderful campaign.”
The women-only luncheon was attended by her counterparts Raychelle Omamo (Defence), Sicily Kariuki (Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs) and Phyllis Kandie (East African Community, Labour and Social Protection).
Also present were Public Service Commission Chairperson Margaret Kobia, Deputy Chief Justice Philomena Mwilu, Supreme Court Judge Njoki Ndung'u, principal secretaries, other government officials and business leaders.
They celebrated Ms Mohamed’s achievement as a huge milestone.
“We have come back home proud, with our heads held high. We did everything we could possibly and humanly do,” Ms Kariuki said.
Ms Mohamed thanked President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto, who had gone to various African countries to campaign for her.
“If it was up to the President, I know I would have been elected the day he nominated me,” she said.
During the event, Ms Mohamed said she had given the race, the first by any Kenyan at that level, her best.
“It is our first attempt as Kenya and we ran a wonderful campaign. We reached 51 countries and we made wonderful relationships,” she said.
Following her loss, Ms Mohamed bore the brunt of jokes online, with the hashtag #WhyAminaLost.
Offline, opposition chiefs Kalonzo Musyoka of the Wiper Democratic Movement, Moses Wetang’ula of Ford-Kenya and Musalia Mudavadi of Amani National Congress said the defeat was a show of Kenya’s lost glory in diplomatic circles and signalled the need to defeat the Jubilee Party in the August elections.
