Uhuru Kenyatta rallying in one of his strongholds in Nyeri County, Central Kenya before the elections. Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Mar 10 2013 (IPS)

Kenyans may have elected as president a man wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, but political analysts here say that Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidency will not have significant implications for the country’s international standing just yet.

“World leaders will work to follow their interests. In politics, interests override all else and Kenya is too significant an East African nation to be ignored. It’s the big brother of East African nations in every aspect,” James Mwai, a political analyst, told IPS.

The president elect and his running mate, William Ruto, are both wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity in the 2007-2008 general elections where an estimated 1,300 people were killed, at least 600,000 people displaced and property worth millions of dollars destroyed.

Kenyatta won 50.07 percent, or over 6.1 million, of all votes cast, the country’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) announced on Saturday Mar. 9. His strongest political opponent, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, garnered 43.3 percent or just over 5.3 million of votes.

Kenyatta’s win makes him the second sitting African president, along with Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, wanted for crimes by the ICC. Kenyatta’s indictment raises the possibility of difficult diplomatic relationships with the West as the United Kingdom and the European Union have strong policies against relationships with ICC indictees.

The United States also warned ahead of the elections that a Kenyatta victory would have consequences.

But Mwai said that China would work with Kenyatta.

“China will welcome Kenyatta with open arms and its populace may well provide an alternative market for Kenya’s export. Still, the U.K. does a lot of business in Kenya,” Mwai said.

He added that Kenyatta was still a suspect who had promised to cooperate with the ICC.

“Should this position change, then we have reason to be concerned,” Mwai said.

The election saw the highest ever number of Kenyans turn out to make their mark on Mar. 4 – about 86 percent of the 14.3 million registered voters.

Uhuru Kenyatta’s supporters celebrating in Nyeri town, Central Kenya, one of his political strongholds. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

Vincent Kimosop, chief executive officer of local NGO the International Institute for Legislative Affairs, told IPS that the elections showed “that Kenya has made leaps as a democracy.”

“Look at the numbers, the gap between Odinga and Kenyatta is telling. The people have spoken and it is clear that Kenyans are not looking for affirmation from the West. The calm we have experienced throughout the week is another indication that we are moving forward,” he said.

Mutahi Ngunyi, a well-known political scientist, said that Kenyans voted for a Kenyatta government because they believe he will co-operate with the ICC and if he fails to do so “they can always impeach him in accordance with the law.”

“The West has no choice but to work with Kenya,” he told IPS.

But Simon Ngugi, a legal expert, is not so certain.

“If the truth be told, no one wants to be photographed shaking the hand of an ICC indictee. But Kenyans have spoken loud and clear. There are Kenyans who believe that the ICC is a partial and political court, and see it as a sign of continued oppression by the West,” Ngugi told IPS.

Java Bigambo, a political analyst with Interthoughts Consulting, a consultancy on governance, leadership and policy, wondered whether United Nations agencies offices in Kenya would close down.

“It may be awkward for the regional U.N. offices. Will they shut down to respect international law?

“This win raises speculation about whether the president and his deputy will actually cooperate with the ICC, and if they do, the nature of this interaction raises more questions than answers,” said Bigambo.

A presidency to heal divisions?

But Mwai said that that many had underestimated the impact of the political partnership between Kenyatta and Ruto.

Together, Kenyatta and Ruto represent two of the country’s biggest ethnic groups. Kenyatta is Kikuyu, and Ruto is Kalenjin. The two communities have shared a bitter, violent and painful past, which includes fighting against each other in the 2007-2008 post-election violence.

“Kenyatta and Ruto, previously bitter adversaries, have had to forge a strong political relationship for their own self-preservation,” he said.

Bigambo said that Odinga would have had both Kenyatta and Ruto tried for war crimes, had he won.

Kenyans who celebrated Kenyatta’s victory on Mar. 9 told IPS that they hoped that it would lead to peace-building among the country’s different ethnic groups.

Maggie Kamau, from Eldoret in the Rift Valley province, a region that experienced the worst of the 2007-2008 post-election violence, stood in the queue all day on Mar. 4 to vote.

“Kenyatta’s win will bring healing to the bedevilled Rift Valley region. Ruto will safeguard the interest of his people and Kenyatta’s. Together, with time, they can resolve historical injustices that have caused bloodshed and destruction between the two communities,” Kamau said.

Delay in voting

It was expected that once Kenyans had cast their vote it would take less than 48 hours before the winner was announced.

However, the IEBC was faced with a myriad of challenges that delayed the announcement of the presidential results for five days.

Because of the numerous technical issues it faced with the electronic counting, on Mar. 6 the IEBC announced that it would disregard provisional results streamed electronically in favour of the manual system. While the move was in accordance with the country’s constitution, not everyone was happy.

Odinga told the media that there was a “conspiracy” to have the electoral system fail and that the IEBC had kicked his party agents out of the national tallying centre and had not allowed them to verify the results.

On Mar. 9, minutes after Kenyatta walked out of the IEBC’s national tallying centre as president elect with his official certificate of the results, Odinga made the announcement to the media and refused to concede defeat.

Supporters of Egyptian President Morsi in Tahrir Square to protest dissolution of parliament. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jul 15 2012 (IPS)

The first major confrontation between Egypt’s new Islamist president and its quasi-ruling military council – fought over the issue of legislative authority – appears to have been won by the latter.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies may have swept last year’s parliamentary polls, but lawmaking power remains in the hands of the military,” Magdi Sherif, political analyst and head of the Guardians of the Revolution Party established in the wake of last year’s Tahrir Square uprising, told IPS. “And recent developments have drawn Egypt’s judiciary into the conflict.”

On Jul. 8, Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely-elected president and long-time Muslim Brotherhood figure, issued an executive decree calling on members of the People’s Assembly, the lower house of Egypt’s parliament, to convene. The decree further called for fresh parliamentary polls to be held 60 days after approval of a new constitution via popular referendum.

On Jul. 10, however, Egypt’s High Constitutional Court (HCC) ‘suspended’ implementation of Morsi’s decree based on an earlier HCC ruling calling for the dissolution of parliament’s lower house. The constitutional court went on to stress that its decisions were “final” and “irreversible.”

The following day, Morsi backed down. Vowing to abide by the court ruling, he stressed the presidency’s “respect for the HCC, its judges and all rulings emanating from Egypt’s judiciary.”

Morsi’s Jul. 8 decree reconvening the People’s Assembly – one of his first major acts as Egypt’s new president – had come as a surprise. Not only did it contravene a constitutional court ruling, but it directly countermanded an order issued by Egypt’s military council.

The battle for legislative primacy began in mid-June, when the HCC ruled that the regulations governing last year’s legislative polls – which were swept by the Brotherhood and its Islamist allies – were unconstitutional. The following day, the military council ordered dissolution of parliament’s lower house, almost half the seats of which had been held by the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

Many legal experts continue to question the move’s legitimacy.

“The HCC ruling failed to provide any legal rationale for dissolving the entire assembly,” Atef al-Banna, professor of constitutional law at Cairo University told IPS. “The court only found one-third of the seats in the assembly – those reserved for independents but which were contested by party-affiliated candidates – to be constitutionally questionable.”

When Morsi abruptly ordered the lower house to reconvene, Brotherhood officials hailed the move as a “reflection of the popular will.” The decision was taken, leading FJP member Mohamed al-Baltagi said at the time, “out of respect for the 30 million-plus Egyptians who cast ballots in last year’s parliamentary polls.”

Legal authorities and constitutional law experts, meanwhile, continue to disagree on the legal and constitutional validity of Morsi’s executive diktat.

“Issuing the decree was entirely within Morsi’s legal rights. The President of the republic has the authority to convene the People’s Assembly whenever he wants,” Sarwat Badawi, constitutional law professor at Cairo University told IPS.

According to Badawi, it was the military council’s initial order to dissolve the assembly that was in breach of the law, “since it wasn’t issued by the relevant authority.” The military council, Badawi asserted, “does not have the legal right to order the dissolution of parliament.”

He added: “The HCC, meanwhile, is only mandated with ruling on whether something is constitutional or unconstitutional. Issuing recommendations on how its verdicts should be implemented – as it did when it called for parliament’s dissolution – is outside the court’s purview.”

Mohamed Hamed al-Gamal, former head of Egypt’s State Council, the country’s highest judicial authority in legal disputes between the state and public, strenuously disagreed.

“Morsi’s decision had no constitutional basis and was outside the authority of the presidency,” al-Gamal told IPS. “What’s more, it directly contravened both the HCC ruling and the constitutional addendum.”

Al-Gamal was referring to a Jun. 17 constitutional ‘addendum’ issued by the military council only days after the initial HCC ruling and only days before last month’s hotly-contested presidential runoff. The controversial addendum significantly expanded the military council’s powers at the expense of the country’s democratically elected parliament and presidency.

Along with transferring legislative authority from the dissolved People’s Assembly to the military council, the addendum also transferred several major executive prerogatives – not least of which is the right to declare war – from the presidency to Egypt’s influential generals.

“According to the addendum, the president will share executive authority with the military council,” prominent political analyst Abdullah al-Sennawi told IPS. He went on to describe the move as “nothing less than a soft coup against Egypt’s post-revolution democratic transition.”

Some analysts believe that Morsi’s backdown from last week’s presidential decree was a strategic retreat; that the presidency – and by extension the Brotherhood – is merely saving its strength for its primary objective: the abrogation of the military council’s constitutional addendum.

“Morsi’s subsequent retreat suggests that the decree was a test balloon aimed at measuring the presidency’s strength vis-à-vis the military council,” said Sherif. “If the decree had gone unchallenged, and parliament was allowed to reconvene, Morsi would have taken additional steps aimed at consolidating his position with the ultimate objective of overturning the constitutional addendum and restricting the military’s political role.”

Morsi supporters, meanwhile, have been arrayed in Cairo’s Tahir Square since mid-June – in varying numbers – to protest the dissolution of the Islamist-led People’s Assembly and the terms of the constitutional addendum. Many of them denounce Egypt’s judiciary, describing it as “politicised” and “packed with Mubarak-era holdovers.”

“The recent constitutional court rulings only confirm that Egypt’s judiciary, like most other state institutions, remains full of Mubarak loyalists with counter-revolutionary agendas,” Mohamed Aweida, leading member of the as-yet-unlicensed Arab Unity Party told IPS from the square.

“The idea that these court rulings are being used to achieve political ends has a lot to support it,” Sherif, too, conceded. “This includes the uncanny timing of its initial verdict dissolving parliament, issued only days before last month’s presidential runoff.

“What’s more, the constitutional court took only 45 days to arrive at a ruling, when decisions on major constitutional issues usually take years,” Sherif added. He went on to note that two similar Mubarak-era HCC rulings – both regarding the constitutionality of parliament – had taken five and two years, respectively, to decide.