{UAH} Pojim/WBK: The public mood is still vicious; we must temper it - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
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The public mood is still vicious; we must temper it - Comment
By L. Muthoni Wanyeki
Posted Saturday, December 27 2014 at 13:17
The ruling political party has had a year of ups and downs. Or maybe one up and many downs. And in that up may be the seeds of another down in the year to come.
The up. The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court, while finding non-co-operation on the part of the government of Kenya, failed to refer Kenya to the Assembly of State Parties. For the Office of the Prosecutor, that failure meant the effort to make up for the steady attrition of its witness base with financial and telephone records came to a grinding halt.
Accordingly, it withdrew its charges against President Uhuru Kenyatta. The triumphant response here in Kenya failed to note that his guilt or innocence had neither been proven nor disproven.
The up that may carry the seeds of another down. The trial of William Ruto and Joshua Sang continued. The executive declared its determination to see the end of that trial as well.
Primarily to assuage disquiet within the ranks. All and sundry — including the so-called elders — trooped off to the ASP hoping to publicly chastise the OTP. That didn't happen. Again, the manner in which the saga was being played out here — "one down, two to go" — failed to take cognisance of the different evidence bases on which the two different cases respectively rest.
There is a big difference between an evidence base concerning a score or so of "linkage" witnesses at only a couple of meetings and an evidence base concerning a much broader set of linkage witnesses from meetings both public and private. We shall see.
Just as we shall see how the disquiet within the ranks is either definitively settled in the year ahead. Or comes to a head.
For now though, a new common enemy has helped provide the glue. Rising Kenyan anger at insecurity of all kinds led, finally, to the more symbolic gesture of heads rolling across the security services.
Except the military, which spread its tentacles into more and more civilian roles. The now infamous Security Act was slammed through parliament in record time. The year ahead will be a test of the executive's stated intentions of using the raft of amendments solely for the counter-terrorism effort. And a test of whether or not these amendments will actually help stem the tide of guerrilla-like attacks that have left so many Kenyans dead and maimed.
Meanwhile, across the aisles, the opposition attempted to get itself together. Building on the impetus generated by the return of Raila Odinga from the US — "Baba, while you were away" — its first initiative was the call for a referendum on the Constitution.
That initiative seems to have died a quiet death in the wake of all the chaos that apparently accompanies its own internal "democratic" processes. The "Men in Black" remain unknown. But the damage they have caused to the credibility of Cord is deep. Making it hard to take seriously its attempt to stand firm against the Security Act.
Meanwhile, the political — and therefore public — mood continues belligerent. The heat generated by the general election of 2013 has simply failed to dissipate. The pro-Jubilant crowd is vicious — the battles being waged against civil society and critical commentators online are hard to fathom. The rent-a-crowd social media people haven't relented.
This public mood is what every effort must be made to temper in the year ahead.
L. Muthoni Wanyeki is Amnesty International's regional director for East Africa
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