The timing of Kenya’s elections, called this week, says much about Daniel arap Moi’s intent. Kenya’s aging president has left the ballot until the last minute, December 29, just two days before the constitutional deadline for an election. It will be held during the Christmas holidays when large numbers of city dwellers, who tend to favour the opposition, will be relaxing in their home villages where they are not registered to vote.
This was a trick Kenya’s autocratic president pulled five years ago. All the signs are that he is falling back on a host of other tried and tested manipulations – from a lopsided electoral system to organised violence – to assure himself of victory. Yet, when he wins, Moi’s opponents will have no one to blame but themselves. Thanks to an opposition damned by egos and ethnic division he is unlikely to face a serious electoral challenge.
Kenya’s president has been in power for 18 years. With his old friend Mobutu Sese Seko so spectacularly discarded, he is among the last of Africa’s dinosaurs. But even those Kenyans who believe their president’s claim that the alternative to him is chaos can draw little comfort from the prospect of another five years.
His rule has been marked not only by perpetual corruption and greed but a singular lack of any sense of responsibility for the welfare of the nation as a whole.
Kenya is going down the tubes. Unemployment is soaring. Wages are tumbling. Its infrastructure is collapsing. Long power cuts in the capital are routine. Foreign investment is retreating. Kenyans see little hope of an upturn in their country’s fortunes. They eye prospering Uganda with envy. Moi and his cronies have watched it happen unconcerned.
Moi was smart enough to give ground on demands for constitutional reform after sometimes violent pro-democracy demonstrations earlier this year. He scrapped repressive colonial-era sedition laws and expanded the electoral commission to include opposition nominees. But he has refused to bow to pressure for a run-off election should any candidate fail to win an outright majority. In 1992, Moi picked up little more than one-third of votes cast.
The opposition is crying foul. Many Kenyans agree but are just as likely to blame the opposition as Moi for the prospect of another five years in a very dark tunnel.
A question of friends
During the exile years one of the most popular figures in the African National Congress, at least among the media, was Thabo Mbeki. Most correspondents who had dealings with ANC headquarters in Lusaka during that time have happy tales to tell of evenings spent in his company – of his charm, his wit, his talents as a raconteur. It is, therefore, with some puzzlement that the Mail & Guardian has found itself battling recently to get access to “the man who would be king”.
Our sense of unease is compounded by the regularity with which the deputy president’s name crops up in this newspaper in connection with the activities of what might be characterised as the less-savoury members of society.
This edition is a striking example. As reported elsewhere, there is evidence that Emmanuel Shaw II – by many accounts one of the biggest rogues on the continent of Africa – seemingly wormed his way into key positions in the government and industry by claiming friendship with the deputy president. Precisely what the relationship was between Shaw and Mbeki is not clear.
Shaw is obviously a con-man and it is a familiar tactic of such crooks to whitewash their own characters by associating themselves with the great and the good. Shaw would not be the first to exploit the deputy president’s name in such a way.
Readers might recall Paul Ekon, another curious character who boasted that he had funded Mbeki’s 50th birthday bash (a surprise party, it should be said.). This was shortly before Ekon departed these shores, seemingly with the gold and diamond branch snapping at his heels.
These are characters who seek to exploit the deputy president’s good name. But there are also instances where Mbeki is perhaps a little rash in extending the hand of friendship himself. At the same time, there may be complex policy considerations of which we are ignorant. If so, we would like to be acquainted with them.
Indeed we would like to clarify a number of issues with the deputy president … if only we could get access to him. We would assure the deputy president that we share with him the desire to uphold the good name of his high office. It is a goal best achieved by mutual understanding.