President Uhuru Kenyatta signs the Security Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014, at State House, Nairobi. 'The intolerance on display in the processing of the Security Bill will continue in 2015, and the remainder of this electoral term'. PHOTO | PSCU
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The country ends a difficult year, characterised by a security meltdown, with a major political disagreement over the future of the Security Act.
This is the very measure that the government claims is intended to address security problems, but which the opposition and human rights groups claim is an attempt to roll back constitutional liberties and which they seek to challenge.
The passing of the Act, amid chaotic scenes in the National Assembly, was followed by immediate assent, the President using the occasion to offer the previously missing rationale for the Act.
His advice that those criticising the Act should first read it was ironic, since failure to offer a meaningful opportunity to understand its contents was the first problem. The Deputy President also criticised the opposition’s resistance to the Act, thus crystallising a new fault line in national politics.
The coming year is likely to be challenging. Without considering the uncertain security situation, over which new and unforeseen complications can arise, the current political disagreements, outwardly about management of national security, have further compounded what was already a testing national context, leaving little room for healthy politics.
LEADERSHIP GAP
Calls by the opposition for national dialogue, rebuffed by the government, created Okoa Kenya, whose flagship has been the call for a referendum to address issues, including insecurity, with which there has been no meeting of minds with the government. While the referendum effort has not flourished, the official response to the runaway insecurity has been inadequate, and has demonstrated a leadership gap.
Before the Security Act, it was difficult enough for the government and the opposition to cooperate in addressing national issues. The fallout from the Act significantly increases the difficulties. Although the President finally took decisive measures by replacing the country’s security chiefs, an action that will buy his government time to address insecurity in the country, he also made a series of blunders along the way.
While the President initially characterised the Mpeketoni terrorist attacks as ethnic cleansing targeting the Kikuyu community, thus absolving Al-Shabaab, who had already claimed responsibility, he has since called them “attacks on Christians in Lamu”.
This characterisation was criticised as reckless, divisive and discriminatory, the President coming through as a sectional leader. Then, the President, away when the Mandera attacks occurred, returned to the country and released the government from responsibility for security, declaring individuals were responsible for their own security and also blaming victims of insecurity for what befell them, with the Deputy President supporting this position.
While the latest action, the Security Act, perpetuates Jubilee’s balkanising reaction to insecurity, the processing of the Act, pushed through the National Assembly in record time, amid spirited but ultimately futile resistance by the opposition, destroys the remaining chance for bipartisan politics.
Thus, New Year comes with the reality that the President’s often contested understanding of, and responses to, insecurity faces the additional difficulty of a decline in his bi-partisan appeal.
In the highly divided national context, the President is unlikely to suffer any harm from this, and may, in fact, consolidate his existing support. But this is not likely to endear him to the rest of the country.
The chamber of the National Assembly was the scene of the latest round of disagreements, before which indescribable ignominy unfolded, in what was a veritable war.
Whoever is to blame, it is clear that the Speaker, Justin Muturi, is now unfit to lead the Assembly and his position as Speaker is no longer tenable, even in Jubilee’s eyes.
INEFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
However, it is unlikely that Jubilee will replace him. His remaining in office will, therefore, be a continuing desecration of the Assembly, as witnessed in the debate on the Security Bill, and will render the House irrelevant in national life, rather like the one-party Kanu parliaments of old, or the old judiciary.
Thus, 2015 will open with an increasingly ineffective leadership under President Kenyatta, compounded by an ineffective and toxic Assembly. From there it will only get harder.
Nobody in Kenya now, not the President and not the opposition leadership, enjoys the respect of the whole country, as would be able to bring the various factions together to discuss anything.
Cord will continue mounting whatever skirmishes it can against the government, most of which will fail, as there are few neutral people left, and its support base remains unconvinced that Cord is worth their support.
As also seen through the arrest and charging of blogger Robert Alai, Jubilee no longer needs to hide its hand, and no longer can. The intolerance on display in the processing of the Security Bill will continue in 2015, and the remainder of this electoral term.
Debate on the Security Bill was an important juncture in national politics because it provided the occasion for Jubilee to finally drop its mask. Like the Kanu leadership before, the Jubilee leadership claims infallibility, and knowledge of everything, and therefore needs nobody outside Jubilee.
Kenya is under an evidently incompetent leadership which is now also becoming openly dictatorial. Two reasons explain this. First, to reduce public scrutiny and exposure of its mistakes, and secondly, to defeat any challenge to its power. The opposition is where Jubilee wants it to be: in disarray.
Jubilee will continue to spend resources to contain dissidents rather than solving actual problems. The Security Act clarifies that Jubilee is not interested in popularity or legitimacy but in disorganising all opposition as a means of holding onto power. Some will conclude that Jubilee learnt Kanu.
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