Trust Weakest Link in Search for Peace
The violence and bloodletting which is rocking the country and the standoff between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki would be difficult to resolve without trust between the two protagonists and by citizens in their government. Yet trust is what is sorely missing thanks to previous administrations, and especially that of Mwai Kibaki which callously chose to disregard some of Kenya’s budding institutions of trust.
When Mwai Kibaki thrashed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that brought him to power in 2002, he watered and fertilized a seed of mistrust in the Kenyan psyche that would be difficult to bridge without genuine contrition on his part.
Not only did he thrash the MoU, but he dismissed it with little sensitivity to the extent of his Minister John Michuki gloating that there had been no intention to honour it ab initio, but merely use it as a means of getting rid of Moi.
Since then, Kibaki has continued to undermine national institutions of trust every step of the way. When he fired those he had entered the MoU with, he concocted a government of national unity (GNU) that was based on poaching of MPs from opposition parties in total disregard of the party manifestos. Following the recent election, the small parties are worried that he might kill them off by poaching their members once again (Loud No to ‘Back Door’ Nominations, Sunday Nation 6th January 2008).
When the terms of some of the electoral commissioners expired recently, Kibaki, appointed his own commissioners without as much as consulting the other political parties, contrary to the IPPG signed in 1997. Yet, it is the same electoral body that the opposition parties were expected to trust to fairly and impartially run the general election! He chose to forget that the IPPG was the product of negotiations across political parties to avert political chaos similar to those witnessed since the conclusion of the recent election.
When Kibaki appointed John Githongo as PS of Governance and Ethics, he trusted that Kibaki was commited to the war against corruption. He was shocked to discover that Kibaki was not interested in fighting such a war and instead had to flee the country.
It appears that of the very important achievements of the Kibaki presidency, beside the very positive once such as turning the economy around, has been the destruction of the budding institutions of trust. In this, he has followed closely in the script of his predecessor, Daniel Arap Moi who famously said that when wooing a girl, you can promise her anything to get her to accept your proposal, but you are not bound to keep these promises once she walks down the aisle with you.
The lack of trust has extended to other institutions of government which include the Judiciary. Though Raila Odinga claims that the Judiciary is filled with Kibaki’s appointees, this assertion is more a reflection of the mistrust of this institution because of historical events where the Judiciary has more often than not been compliance to the dictates of the executive. The judiciary, for one reason or other has displayed such incompetence as to fail to hear a petition before the subsequent election was called. This historical mistrust has not been helped by Kibaki’s appointment of judges to the Court of Appeal a few weeks to the general election, again contrary to the voices of other political parties. Or the participation of the Chief Justice in the hurried inauguration of Mwai Kibaki even as protests were gathering storm. Yet it is this institution that would have been expected to unlock the current impasse.
Given his record, it is remarkable, that just like in the case of his predecessor, Daniel Arap Moi, many people including Raila Odinga still harbour the illusion that Kibaki is a gentleman who is only tarnished by those around him.
The dismissal of that MoU with such scorn and with little regard for the feelings of all those who had committed their political futures and their supporters to it would haunt Kenya for generations to come.
Given this systematic destruction of key institutions of trust, should Kibaki be surprised that Raila Odinga is unwilling to sit down with him to broker a settlement that would unlock the violence that has gripped the country?
There is therefore only one solution to this lack of trust, and that is getting Raila and Kibaki together with parties whom both of these antagonists can trust to pressure the other to keep their word. In the absence of such mediation, even if the security forces restore order, there would be no peace in Kenya, if peace is defined more broadly other than just the absence of physical conflict.
Yet Kibaki is against such mediation, arguing that the country is not at war. Perhaps he hopes to dupe the other parties one last time? By rejecting mediation, Kibaki appears to have assumed that the bloodletting and political standoff in Kenya is an economic model that would soon find its optimum acceptable level that would enable him govern the country.
The challenge facing the country is how to rebuild the institutions of trust: trust in the courts, in the electoral commission, in institutions of economic governance, to name but a few. The citizens need to have faith that their vote counts, that there are avenues of redress for their grievances and that there is certainty about the outcome of their petitions. It is on these institutions of governance that power can be made accountable to the people and the people to power, so vital to a stable and peaceful democracy.
Dr Robert Nyamori
Qatar University
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