Daily Nation, Dec 31, 2007
If President Kibaki had a difficult first term ruling without any semblance of a ruling party, the trials he faced could be minor compared to what lies ahead of a second term with a deeply tarnished mandate.He took the oath of office with the immediate task of moving urgently to contain a highly volatile situation that could easily plunge the country into anarchy and chaos.
Yet he will be trying to do so from a position where he has been declared president but does not enjoy legitimacy.
This is especially in some of the biggest and most populous regions of the country where perceptions of a stolen election have provoked the most anger.
Political solution
He of course has the instruments of state: the police, the Provincial Administration and other security organs, which may be required to deal with any threats to law and order.
Yet the crises Kenya faces require much more than the strong arm of the state law enforcement machinery; it calls for a political solution.
It is doubtful that an Opposition convinced it was cheated of victory will readily cooperate with the President in the urgent mission to calm down their angry supporters.
President Kibaki faces a situation where he may claim the popular vote, but won mostly from regions which are his political strongholds.
It follows that the rest of the country could totally reject the results announced Sunday by Electoral Commission chairman Samuel Kivuitu through state-owned broadcaster KBC after opposition representatives left the Kenyatta International Conference Centre.
Mr Kivuitu conceded there had been a lot that went wrong with the process, but insisted the normal recourse would be through the laid-down legal machinery.
The problem here is that the Opposition might not be interested in filing election petitions that could take years to resolve.
Some of the election petitions filed after the 2002 General Election had yet to be concluded by the time the present election was called!
The Opposition still has a strong card up its sleeve that could present more nightmares for the Kibaki Government than any legal action.
Even before the final results were announced, there had been widespread riots in various parts of the country.
In the populous Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western provinces, the Governments security arms might be completely unable to contain any renewal of violence.
It might be worse when violence is aimed at those perceived to be supporters of PNU and the President.
And here it could take an ugly turn because there could be indiscriminate targeting of people from President Kibaki’s central Kenya.
Those are the people who bore the brunt of the so-called ethnic clashes in the Rift Valley engineered by the Moi regime in the early 1990s to counter the multi-party campaign. The polarisation from those dark days has never died, as seen by recent violence in the Molo-Kuresoi area.
If the Kibaki victory ignites even more resentment against what could be seen as a
scheme by a particular community to dominate the country, then people from central Kenya living and working in regions hostile to the Government could undoubtedly be in grave danger.
The Government simply does not have the security resources to contain what could be a very deadly situation.
It might not help, in any case, for the Government to send in security personnel to a hostile zone to protect a very vulnerable community that happens to be the President’s own. Such a security presence could itself be seen as an occupation force.
With such a flawed mandate in any case, there is the possibility that the President Kibaki would find it difficult to command the loyalty of the entire security apparatus, which is made up of people from all communities in Kenya.
In a nutshell, President Kibaki has taken office for a second and final term, but might be completely unable to govern in a situation that could easily lead to destruction of the country.
That leaves him with the urgent need to reach out to the key Opposition leaders to secure cooperation in calming down their angry people.
Yet at the same time the Government will also be keen to blame the same leaders for inciting violence.
Terrible scenario
Indeed in his various press conferences Sunday, Mr Odinga pointedly suggested that any declaration of a Kibaki victory on the back of fake results would lead to an Ivory Coast-type situation, what he called a scenario too terrible to contemplate.
And at the exchanges with ECK officials at KICC on Saturday, Mr William Ruto, now the new Rift Valley kingpin, former MP Musa Sirma, and others, explicitly cautioned that a stolen election would lead to a very dangerous situation.
Mr Raila Odinga and Mr William Ruto would need very strong incentives to respond positively to any appeals from President Kibaki for their help in restoring peace.
They might be quite happy, to borrow a phrase from former President Moi who in 1997 set the precedent for a hurried private swearing in at State House to forestall a legal challenge — to let President Kibaki stew in his own fat; suffer the consequences of a situation of his own making.
Security issues aside, there is also the basic issue of a president trying to govern without a majority in parliament.
Strong opposition numbers could make the Government’s legislative agenda impossible.
Even forming a government will not be easy.
With MPs mostly from central Kenya, the President will have a hard time creating a Cabinet that will be seen to represent the face of Kenya.
Hard bargain
Perhaps the urgent option will be to speedily invite ODM Kenya leader Kalonzo Musyoka into a coalition, but there is no doubt he would drive a hard bargain.
He would probably settle for nothing less than the Vice-Presidency, provoking resentment from those who stuck by the President from outside central Kenya and survived the voter massacre.
Mr Moses Wetang’ula, Dr Noah Wekesa, both from western Kenya, and Mr Chirau Ali Mwakwere (Coast) might also lay their own claims.
With the volatile situation that is in the making, however, appointing a Cabinet might be the President’s least worry.
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