[UAH] Kenyatta’s election and the shallowness of African politics - Allan Tacca - monitor.co.ug

http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/AllanTacca/Kenyatta-s-election-and-the-shallowness-of-African-politics/-/878694/1856254/-/13bvrcg/-/index.html

In Summary

"So, when Kenyatta and his defiant inauguration day comrade, President Museveni, did not get Most-Favoured-VIP treatment at a Somalia conference in the UK recently, there was some grumbling. Reason? Because Uganda and Kenya have done so much to bring Somalia to some kind of order."

Several months before Kenya's recent general election, Presidential contender Raila Odinga was in Uganda, fraternising with different politicians who have been associated with Uganda's endemic corruption, which left me afraid that an Odinga Victory in Kenya might simply widen the network of vampires bleeding the region.

But neither was a victory by Uhuru Kenyatta more palatable. Perhaps because Uhuru's huge family wealth and campaign chest were a legacy of the horrendous corruption during the regime of his father, Jomo Kenyatta, it was difficult to see the son dismantling the structures of socio-economic injustice of which he was a big beneficiary. 
Then there was the ICC indictment, a monkey Uhuru would probably continue to carry on his back at the same time as he tried to govern Kenya.

So, I got the feeling that our brothers and sisters next-door were stuck with a choice between two ugly bulls. Yes, an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. But the preliminaries leading to a formal charge at the ICC make the case quite different from the sort of concoctions of treason, rape and so on that despotic governments level against opposition politicians threatening their hold on power.

In any country, lawyers and judges are a minority, but I believe that part of the responsibility of voters is to look closely at the actors seeking high office, the events and circumstances around these actors, and to constantly review the political choices they (the voters) are leaning towards. They make these judgments, not as legal experts, but as thinking citizens who have some idea about what is good for them (as individuals and contrasting groups), and also good for their country.

This creates a dynamic political drama that changes the fortunes of contenders. Although there is no such thing as a perfect democracy, there are many functioning democracies, of which the American variant is a good demonstrator of that dynamic process. In less than 12 months, a person (whom even the majority of Americans had not thought about) can be raised from near-obscurity to the highest office in the land.
By the same token, a political giant – regardless of the brand – can be taught in a few weeks how to eat very humble pie.

From a cynical angle, Africans deserve the thieves, despots and killers they get. Once the Kenyans got Odinga and Kenyatta into their heads, their imagination stopped. They worshipped the two like gods. Words of caution about Kenyatta from the Johnnie Carson (moralistic) wing of American diplomacy were swiftly denounced as an insult to Kenyan sovereignty. In a dynamic democracy, some of the other candidates should have benefited significantly from the glaring liability Kenyatta was; a new big candidate could have arisen. Instead, they perhaps even lost ground!

Yet all that stuff about African pride and sovereignty collapses when they are begging, or seeking photo opportunities with the mighty in the West, or want to be taken seriously in international policy-making.

So, when Kenyatta and his defiant inauguration day comrade, President Museveni, did not get Most-Favoured-VIP treatment at a Somalia conference in the UK recently, there was some grumbling. Reason? Because Uganda and Kenya have done so much to bring Somalia to some kind of order.

Fine, but maybe Western establishments tend to separate issues. Wonderful commanders are not necessarily great governors. Kenyatta has not had time to show them his way of using power. Moreover, the serious crimes he is facing at the ICC have not gone away. 
As for President Museveni, with the billions that have been disappearing under his nose for twenty-seven years, including those for war-ravaged northern Uganda, why should he be paraded in any post-war reconstruction project? When it is a regional war, Western generals always consult and give him his due respect. He should be satisfied with that.

Alan Tacca is a novelist and socio-political 
commentator. altacca@yahoo.com

Kenyatta's election and the shallowness of African politics - Allan Tacca - monitor.co.ug
http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/OpEdColumnists/AllanTacca/Kenyatta-s-e