Raising the Pressure Ahead of Kenya’s Election

Uhuru Kenyatta shares a laugh with Raila Odinga / Capital FM Kenya

“Choices have consequences.” That was the message from Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson, the top U.S. diplomat for African affairs, in a recent conversation with reporters about Kenya’s upcoming election. “Individuals have reputations, individuals have images, individuals have histories. Individuals are known for who they are and what they do, what they have said, and how they act.”

The comments were surprising, and perhaps ill-advised. Carson’s confrontational tone appeared to contradict the more benign message from President Obama only two days earlier, in which he expressed his simple hope for a peaceful, free, and fair election. But the sub-text from Carson was even more striking. His not-so-subtle remarks read as a not-so-veiled threat, with a clear implication of “consequences” on the international scene in the event of a win by a certain individual, left unnamed but well known to every Kenyan (more on that below). A look at recent Kenyan political history reveals the risk of adding this sort of pressure to an already combustible electoral environment.

When Kenyans head to the polls on March 4, they will select a president to replace Mwai Kibaki, the octogenarian leader that has presided over the government since 2002. The election will be Kenya’s first since the troubled poll in 2007, when allegations of fraud quickly escalated into widespread ethnic violence that left over 1,200 dead and displaced another 350,000.

Despite considerable evidence of irregularities and manipulation — including the sudden replacement of almost the entire election commission with Kibaki loyalists only weeks before election day — the United States chose to publicly support the official 2007 results, with the incumbent Kibaki (an ethnic Kikuyu) as a slim winner over opposition candidate Raila Odinga (a Luo). Some contend that U.S. officials went so far as to prevent the release of an exit poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, the results of which not only showed an Odinga victory, but gave him a margin so large it would have undermined Kibaki’s claim to power. Odinga was eventually given the role of prime minister as part of a post-election, power-sharing deal to reestablish stability. Yet, his supporters remain bitter about what they believe was a stolen election aided, in part, by the complicity of the United States and other international actors.

Fast forward to today. The leading candidates to succeed Kibaki are familiar characters; two men who bear the scars of 2007, and whose political pedigrees are symbolic of recurring battles since Kenya’s independence. Odinga is back on the ballot, and his Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) coalition party has amassed a large base of support among many of the smaller tribes throughout the country. His primary challenger is Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu and son of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta. Odinga’s father served as Jomo Kenyatta’s first vice president before the relationship between the two men soured, Odinga resigned to form a new opposition movement, and Kenyatta threw him in jail for two years. Even in a country known for fluid political arrangements and shifting alliances, the animosity between the two families has had lasting political implications.

Jomo’s son, Uhuru, first entered big-time national politics as a presidential candidate running opposite Kibaki in the 2002 election. Although he received an endorsement from Kenya’s retiring President Daniel Moi, Kenyatta could not secure the support from other prominent members of the ruling KANU party, including then-KANU Secretary General Raila Odinga, who chose instead to join a new coalition in support of Kibaki. Kenyatta, of course, lost that election. Five years later, Kenyatta announced that instead of challenging Kibaki for the State House, he would endorse his re-election campaign. That decision proved consequential. In the post-election chaos that followed, Kenyatta was accused of organizing a variety of Kikuyu groups (Kibaki’s base) to commit acts of violence against members of the Luo and Kalenjin communities, which had largely supported Odinga’s campaign. Odinga and his political allies were suspected of fomenting the violence as well, particularly since the riots that erupted immediately after the results were released included weapons that were clearly distributed before the election. Yet, of the two men, only Kenyatta was directly implicated when the case was referred to the International Criminal Court in 2010. The ICC ultimately indicted Kenyatta and three others for crimes against humanity. Their trial is set to begin in April.

So Uhuru Kenyatta is the individual left unnamed by Assistant Secretary Carson. But Kenyatta is also the single candidate for whom the stakes are highest. For him, this election is an insurance policy against criminal conviction, an extra layer of defense to preempt an involuntary trip to the Hague. And for Odinga, the election is not only a shot at redemption in what could be his final presidential bid, but an opportunity to give his Luo community an office that has eluded every Kenyan tribe not named Kikuyu or Kalenjin. It also carries the prospect of defeating a man whose father imprisoned his own.

These sub-plots add intensity to a battle that already carries significant consequences in Kenya. The presidency is associated with access to jobs, state contracts, resources, and land — all for the particular tribe or tribes within the ruling coalition. Though Kenya has a new constitution with devolved political structures intended to reduce presidential power (and perhaps the intensity of the competition to fill that office), the fundamental ingredients for political violence and instability remain.

Few expected the United States to wade deeply into this kind of environment. To an outsider observer, there would seem to be little benefit for the U.S. to raise the stakes even higher and potentially restrict future options for engagement. Kenya is an important U.S. regional partner for any number of issues, including international security and terrorism. The country’s proximity to the Horn of Africa and pirate-threatened international shipping lanes, in particular, make it a valuable ally — and the U.S. will certainly wish to maintain that relationship regardless of who wins come March. Perhaps some officials believe that the simple threat of cooler relations will siphon off enough support from Kenyatta to ensure an Odinga victory. But it’s unclear whether that result would be any more or less advantageous to U.S. interests than a Kenyatta presidency. Indeed, both men (and their supporters) are sensitive to the importance of relationships with the West, as well as the financial and material support those relationships yield.

My guess is that Carson’s remarks do not reflect actual U.S. policy. The State Department is in a transitional phase between Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, and perhaps Carson exploited a temporary vacuum in policy guidance to wander off the reservation and push his personal views. As a former Ambassador to Kenya, he certainly has close ties to the country and strong views of recent events. But his extensive diplomatic experience also suggests that he is not someone to riff off the cuff in front of reporters. His words had the cadence and style of comments that were thoughtfully crafted in advance. Official U.S. policy or not, what he says in public does not go unnoticed by local politicians.

Choices do have consequences, as Carson rightfully said. Hopefully his choice to issue diplomatic threats will not create more problems in an already difficult election, or box the U.S. into a corner if Kenyatta does emerge with a win.