Hard-line stands hinder deal critical for poll

The unrelenting scorched earth policy pursued by both President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party and opposition leader Raila Odinga’s National Super Alliance (Nasa) was on show again on Thursday as the tripartite pre-election talks at the Bomas of Kenya broke up in rancour.

The talks refereed by Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Chairman Wafula Chebukati were seeking an urgent resolution to the impasse clouding the run-up to the fresh presidential election scheduled for October 26.

FAST-TRACK

The talks had initially been postponed the previous day when the Nasa team objected to Jubilee push in Parliament to amend the electoral laws, insisting that the proposed changes must form part of the discussions.

On Thursday morning when it became apparent that Jubilee was not relenting, and was even making use of its majority to fast-track the contentious amendments, the Nasa side led by Siaya Senator James Orengo walked out.

Mr Orengo—who was also Mr Odinga’s lead lawyer in the historic case that saw the Supreme Court annul President Kenyatta’s August 8 presidential election and order a fresh poll—said that Nasa would not be party to a scheme by Jubilee to reintroduce dictatorship through Parliament.

RESPONSES

The Jubilee team leader, Senate Deputy Speaker Kithure Kindiki, countered that Nasa was not interested in the negotiations in the first place, charging that the opposition alliance was more interested in scuttling the repeat presidential elections.

Mr Chebukati, however, seemed to sympathise with the Nasa position, cautioning Parliament against changing electoral laws in a manner that will affect ongoing preparations for a repeat election.

The amendments pushed by Jubilee are among a raft of hard-line responses adopted by President Kenyatta’s party angered by the Supreme Court reversal, while resisting Mr Odinga’s demands for major changes to the electoral management body.

In Parliament, Jubilee wants to dilute the law mandating electronic transmission of election results from the initial count at the polling station to the constituency tallying centre numbers and onward to the national tallying centre.

MANUAL

It instead wants manual transmission to prevail in case of any disparity in the numbers.

This is a direct reaction to the Supreme Court decision that found irregularities and illegalities in the electronic transmission serious enough to warrant annulment of the presidential elections.

Jubilee is also pushing changes that would weaken the powers of the IEBC chairman by enforcing collegiate decision-making within the commission, and making the vice chairman eligible to declare presidential election results.

It is instructive here that Jubilee views Mr Chebukati and another commissioner Roselyne Akombe with suspicion, but seems to have confidence in his vice chair Connie Maina, as well as Chief Executive Ezra Chiloba.

The latter is one of the key officials Nasa is demanding be removed from the IEBC ahead of the elections, having, strangely enough, dropped initial demands after the Supreme Court ruling that Mr Chebukati take responsibility for the election debacle and step aside.

THE RO

Under the current law, the electoral body chairman is the Returning Officer for the presidential elections, and the only one mandated to declare the results.

The import of the proposed change is that if Mr Chebukati suddenly disappeared or became unavailable when the results of the repeat presidential election are about to be announced, there would be no vacuum: Ms Maina would be called upon to do the honours.

Mr Chebukati referred to this specific proposal on Thursday, telling MPs that trimming his powers would curtail ability to effectively deliver on his mandate.

The manoeuvres in Parliament are just one leg of a series of moves Jubilee is making to entrench its position ahead of the repeat presidential election, which Nasa is threatening to ensure will not take place unless its demands are met.

The obdurate positions from both sides indicate that hard-liners have taken over, limiting room for a negotiated settlement that would be critical ahead of the elections.

IEBC MEETING

Mr Chebukati in fact seems to believe that the answer would lie in bringing President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga face-to-face across the negotiation table, thereby cutting out the extremists from both sides and allowing the principals to strike a deal.

He repeated is earlier position on Thursday that the President and the Nasa leader will have to personally attend the next meeting.

"Next time we want principals to come in person. We don't want generals to cause sideshows here ahead of the election...we must meet sooner rather than later," he said.

This strategy borrows from the playbook of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who brokered the political settlement that ended the 2007-2008 post-election violence with a power-sharing deal between President Mwai Kibaki and Mr Odinga.

EXTREMISTS

It was only after Mr Annan sequestered President Kibaki and Mr Odinga at a retreat away from their respective bands of hardliner advisers that a deal was struck.

At the time it was a power-sharing deals in the wake of a disputed election and widespread violence, and this time what’s on the table is to craft ground rules ahead of a fresh elections.

Mr Odinga has previously indicated that he is ready to personally attend the talks convened by IEBC, but only if President Kenyatta is also present.

State House hardliners, however, reject any prospect of the president sitting across Mr Odinga as an equal.

This is the same mindset that prevailed ahead of the presidential election debate in August, when President Kenyatta failed to turn up leaving Mr Odinga to ‘debate’ on his own.

CRISIS

The two leaders will remain critical to the emerging scenario where Kenya faces the threat of a constitutional crisis, and real danger of ethnic-political violence, if the repeat presidential election is not held on schedule.

And the issue here is not just about sticking to the date set by IEBC, but about an election in which both sides have confidence.

While Jubilee is quite happy to go to the polls under the present IEBC and electoral rules, it is also determined to resist Nasa demands for major reform ahead of the elections.

It also seems intent on provoking Nasa, as seen with the proposed changes to the election laws.

The contentious action is designed to demonstrates that Jubilee has the parliamentary majority to unilaterally tilt the playing field in its favour, and to trash election laws enacted out of the compromise that sent previous electoral commissioners home and installed the Chebukati team.

CONDITIONS

These moves are taking place concurrently with Jubilee ploys to ‘fix’ the Supreme Court for ruling against President Kenyatta at the petition.    

The message is that Jubilee will not cede in inch on regards to Nasa’s ‘irreducible minimum’ that demands the ejection of Mr Chiloba and a whole host of IEBC Commissioners and senior staff it accuses of rigging the August 8 elections.

Nasa suffered a setback when the detailed Supreme Court ruling on the presidential election petition stopped shy of finding any individual officers culpable, while indicting the IEBC as a body for botching the polls.

The ruling served to undermine Nasa’s campaign for removal of specific individuals officers form overseeing the fresh elections.

It also complicates Nasa plans to launch private criminal prosecutions.

COMPANIES

Nasa is also insisting that Dubai firm Al-Ghurair be stripped of the tender for supply and printing of ballot papers, and French company OT-Morpho be removed from supplying the electronic voter identification and results transmission systems.

Again, however, the Supreme Court did not directly find the two companies guilty of any electoral fraud, weakening the Nasa accusations that are based on its own unverified claims.

In the meantime, Nasa continues to insist that there will be no elections unless it’s demands are met; and is reinforcing its position by scaling up the street protests launched on Wednesday two twice a week.

Jubilee supporters reacted to the Nasa protests by unveiling their own counter-force of mean-looking toughs calling themselves the ‘Nairobi Business Community’.

VIOLENCE

If subsequent social media reactions are anything to go by, many observers thought the fellows paraded looked more like representatives of the outlawed Mungiki gang rather than legitimate business people.

In reaction to opposition threats to storm the IEBC offices and remove officials by force, President Kenyatta in one rally warned Nasa that it had no monopoly on violence, and soon afterwards came the counter-demonstrations, which included lawless mobs closing the vital highway out of Nairobi to the Rift Valley and western Kenya.

The message is that Nasa violence will be met with Jubilee violence, leave alone the regular security machinery which is also at the government’s beck and call.

With the elections less than a month away, time is clearly running out.

Unless President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga can coax their respective platoons into a settlement, the repeat election will approach with those who bungled the first one still in charge, and one side not just saying it will boycott the poll, but vowing that no elections will take place.

That could be recipe for disaster. 

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