{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Why term limits are no longer a big deal in Kenya - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
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Why term limits are no longer a big deal in Kenya - Comment
Burundi's ruling party has dismissed 10 senior party officials for "behaving like rebels" and opposing President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a controversial third term in office.
Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete has weighed in on Nkurunziza's third term, saying during a visit to Burundi a few days ago that the country's leadership should abide by a peace agreement that limits presidents to two terms in office.
East Africa Community leaders don't usually say those kinds of things, but Burundi is a special case. It was a Humpty Dumpty that fell apart, and was stitched back together through a long Tanzania, Uganda, and South African-midwifed peace process.
Tanzania, basically, serves as the guarantor of that peace, and it is right to be jittery about the danger of Burundi sliding into conflict again.
That said, East Africa is not a fertile ground for presidential term limits. Kikwete's own Tanzania has term limits, but they are more internal term limits for the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM or Party of the Revolution), than for the wider political class.
This is because CCM is not about to lose power to the opposition.
In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni saw off term limits in 2005, and is going to run for his seventh term (two of them as an unelected revolutionary leader) in February 2016.
Rwanda has term limits, but all eyes are on what will happen as the end of President Paul Kagame's second term in 2017 approaches.
Kenya then is the only EAC country that has presidential term limits; limits that are respected, and most importantly; where they have resulted in both a different leader and party taking power in an election.
Kenya is also unique in Africa, in that since 2002, no ruling party or ruling party coalition has gone into the next election intact.
It seems that while there is a two-term limit for presidents in Kenya, in practical terms it is now a country with a one-term limit for political parties. In that sense, it is a total outlier in East Africa, and in many ways in Africa too.
The question then is whether being a term limit-ruled land has helped Kenya.
In Uganda, for example, the case for Museveni staying on was based on the argument that, one, there was no alternative to him who could hold the country together and, two, that he still had a lot to offer.
What has happened in Kenya by contrast is interesting. Rarely will you hear anyone making an argument for why term limits are necessary. Kenya therefore seems to be becoming a country where presidents leave after two terms, even if the case for them to stay on is compelling.
The benefit this is giving the country is that it is developing a flexible and experimental political culture, one that enables it to take advantage of global trends because there are no entrenched vested interests from the old order to block them.
For example, Kenya's devolved counties now form 47 political experimental sites, and that gives it more models from which to pick what works than any other African country.
So the best time for presidents to leave, is exactly when there is no reason for them to do so.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is editor of Mail & Guardian Africa. Twitter: @cobbo3
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