Suchergebnisse

The role of election management bodies (EMBs) in consolidation of democracy, peace and stability in Africa cannot be overemphasised. Kenya's electoral bodies have struggled to assert their autonomy from the executive, a prerequisite for credible elections, since the advent of multiparty politics in 1991. The violently disputed presidential elections in 2007 were partly triggered by a partisan and politicised electoral body. The Chairman of the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) controversially declared the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, winner, igniting unprecedented ethnic violence. In the midst of the crisis, he explosively confessed that he did not know who won the elections. The 2013 elections were meant to restore Kenyans' confidence in elections. However, Raila Odinga, the controversial presidential loser in 2007, once again accused the electoral body, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), of electoral fraud in favour of Uhuru Kenyatta. Consequently, the opposition called for the disbandment of the IEBC. Are electoral bodies per se the cause of perennial disputed elections in Kenya?

A entrada pelo Tribunal Penal Internacional (TPI) nas disputas pós-eleitorais de 2007-2008 causou preocupação entre os políticos do Quênia e influenciou os resultados das eleições de 2013? Este artigo argumenta que o indiciamento de quenianos proeminentes pelo TPI por atrocidades cometidas durante a violência pós-eleitoral foi a primeira tentativa de quebrar um ciclo vicioso de impunidade profundamente entrincheirado no corpo político do país. Entretanto, os indiciados exploraram os casos contra eles para exacerbar descontinuidades étnicas, polarizar o país e garantir uma controversa vitória por Uhuru Kenyatta e William Ruto durante as eleições de 2013, apesar de enfrentarem acusações abomináveis perante o TPI. Crucialmente, o Tribunal precipitou incerteza e trepidação entre os cleptocratas que estavam no poder no Quênia desde 1963, o ano da independência do país. A vitória presidencial controversa de Kenyatta em 2013 foi tanto pessoal quanto oligárquica, já que garantiu a continuidade do controle das esferas políticas e econômicas do Quênia por uma plutocracia autorreplicante. Com o controle do aparato estatal, Kenyatta e Ruto conseguiram com sucesso combater a ameaça representada pelo TPI. O artigo analisa a impunidade política no TPI, e a política étnica, através do prisma dos casos do Quênia perante o TPI.

Kenya's protracted reform process and periodic electoral related violence is linked to predatory politics nestled in tribalism. Kenya's politicians' quest to capture the state for extractive purposes has rendered the reform process ethnically polarising and, since dialogue cannot prevail among Kenya's fragmented political class, the resort to violence becomes a means of making claims to the control of the state. This article argues that, although the promulgation of a Constitution in 2010 has the potential to address issues at the core of Kenya's post-colonial crisis, aspects such as inequitable resource distribution, ethnic and regional inequalities, disregard for the rule of law, impunity, a political elite characterised by tribalism and kleptocracy are posing a challenge to the implementation of the Constitution; thus placing the country's long term political stability in jeopardy.

Until the issue of international criminal justice entered into Kenya's politics, following the violently disputed 2007 elections, Kenya's successive governments had never taken international diplomacy and foreign policy seriously or, at least, had never publicly appeared to do so. Never before had the two concepts been so ubiquitous in the country's political lexicon as when the Mwai Kibaki government mobilised locally, continentally and globally in an attempt to torpedo two cases facing prominent Kenyans, the highest profile being Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Kibaki, and later his successor Kenyatta, aggressively canvassed for support on the international stage against the ICC. Kenya featured prominently in regional summits, African Union summits, at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and within the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) of the Rome Statute as it tried to make a no-holds-barred onslaught against the ICC. This article considers whether this show of diplomatic force, which resulted in Kenya extracting concessions from the ICC, was consistent with a well thought out and coherent foreign policy or a cynical reaction meant to rescue indicted persons from the grip of the international criminal justice.