Will ICC spell the end for Jubilee government?

Deputy President William Ruto addresses the Press at the Hague. Photo/File

COLLINS MABINDA

October 10, 2015

     

Throughout the world, coalition governments are a difficult affair to manage. Almost always, one side feels shortchanged, and usually, the minority side ends up getting shortchanged in the coalition arrangement.

Though Prime Minister Raila Odinga was nominally supposed to wield equal powers with President Kibaki in the 2008 coalition government, it is President Kibaki who ended up exerting the ultimate executive authority.

In Britain, the Liberal Democrats, under Nick Clegg, ended up losing not only power, but respect and influence, when they agreed to enter into a coalition arrangement with the governing conservative party under Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010.

Still in Britain, the story goes that long-serving British Labour PM, Tony Blair, in a hotel meeting with Gordon Brown, agreed Blair should go first and then hand over power to Gordon Brown. Blair breached this gentleman’s agreement, and handed power only when labour was losing support in Britain, leaving Brown to face the wrath of the British voters.

They always say history repeats itself. If this is the trend, then URP should be very worried. And no other issue seems to be the sticking point of the coalition than the ICC issue. ICC was the defining issue of the 2013 general elections. Without it, Deputy President William Ruto and President Uhuru Kenyatta would not have come together in the first place. Their coming together clearly demonstrated that in politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. Here were two rivals who were diametrically opposed on every issue in the 2007 general election, and yet, both found an interest to work together.

However, since President Uhuru Kenyatta managed to escape the noose of the ICC, those interests have changed, and consequently, the URP side feels that the Jubilee coalition is not as vehement in its defence of William Ruto at the ICC as it was for President Kenyatta. Here is the crux of the matter: if William Ruto ends up being indicted by the ICC, then it would be very difficult to convince the Rift Valley voters to stay in the coalition government. It’s a scenario that even the most ardent Uhuru supporters would dare not contemplate.

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