AC Vol 43 No 18

www.africa-confidential.com 13 September 2002 Vol 43 No 18 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL LIBERIA 2 KENYA Paranoid or what? President Taylor’s opponents hope Over the rainbow to get an international contact The outgoing President Moi wants to pick his successor, despite the group together at the UN General challenge from dissenters in the party’s Rainbow Alliance Assembly in New York. But no one knows how to prevent the ‘There is no crisis in our country,’ a stern-faced President Daniel arap Moi told a National Executive troublesome leader running for a meeting of the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) on 9 September. Surrounding KANU’s second term. dreary headquarters building in central Nairobi were crowds of chanting supporters, some shouting allegiance to Moi’s chosen successor, Uhuru Kenyatta, some backing the Rainbow Alliance, the KANU dissidents led by George Saitoti and Raila Odinga. As the party’s chieftains argued inside, police chased NIGERIA 3 the Rainbow dissenters away. Running on empty The party that has dominated Kenyan politics for four decades is tearing itself apart. On 30 August the President sacked his scrupulously loyal Vice-President of ten years for undue ambition and accused a Despite the high oil price, Nigeria’s lifelong political ally of betrayal. Opposition politicians rubbed their hands and quietly met the Rainbow government is running out of money. With elections looming, Alliance dissenters. If Odinga and Saitoti left the party, more than a third of its supporters could follow. it’s the foreign creditors who are Moi, his son Gideon, Nicholas Kipyator Biwott, Joshua Kulei and William Ruto – KANU’s likely to lose out. nomenklatura – are ready to take that risk. They seem convinced that Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidential candidacy will bring them victory and political protection for the foreseeable future (AC Vol 43 No 15). KANU’s crisis consumes everyday conversation, the newspapers, radio and television. People enjoy NIGERIA 5 the open quarrels, as the usual diet of authoritarianism and sycophancy gives way to a power struggle Strategic supplies ahead of the December elections. Rival party factions criss-cross the country, seeking support for the candidate they want on the presidential ticket. The decision will be made at a special party congress in The United States wants a secure mid October, whose management provokes much heat. The Rainbow Alliance wants the presidential supply of oil outside the Middle East and is turning to West Africa, candidate chosen in a free vote by party delegates. Moi and his anointed successor, Uhuru Kenyatta, want and particularly to Nigeria, where the saviour to ‘emerge’ by acclamation. a deal outside Opec could enable Nigeria to sharply increase output. ‘Professor, shut up!’ Moi’s end-game is a world apart from the transition in which he won power in 1978. Jomo Kenyatta BURUNDI 5 was dead, Moi is still alive, with all his political wits about him. While Kenyatta was expiring, his political chieftains were plotting to deny the loyal and patient Vice-President Moi his succession. In March, Moi Peace talk, but is it brushed away Saitoti’s aspirations with the instruction: ‘Professor, shut up!’ The former mathematics don had ventured to complain of being sidelined in a party reorganisation. In July, when Saitoti told real? Kenyans that he was seeking the presidential nomination, Moi told him not to confuse ‘friendship with The government is to start talks the national interest’, and sacked him from the vice-presidency a month later. with the two main militias opposing The Professor’s ritual humiliations have fuelled the political drama. ‘George is fighting back at last,’ it, but the divided groups are not the easiest of negotiating partners. one analyst gleefully reported, without much expectation of Saitoti’s success. Veteran conspiracy theorists suggested that the Moi-Saitoti fallout was elaborate playacting, designed to winkle out the KANU dissidents then isolate them. Two months later the dissidents are exposed but not isolated. Saitoti SOUTH AFRICA 7 tours Kenya with Raila Odinga, a former political prisoner once accused of plotting a coup, to extol party democracy and accountability. Their improbable double act overshadows the Rainbow Alliance, the Deep drift main challenge to Moi’s plan to put Uhuru at the top of the party ticket. Government efforts to transfer Kenyans know what the Rainbow Alliance is against. But what is it for? Probably little more than the ownership of mining assets to the right of some senior political hacks to pursue their presidential ambitions. The Rainbow is therefore black majority have alarmed the adding an anti-graft campaign and constitutional reform to its agenda. Last weekend, speakers at a big mining firms. Rainbow rally in Malindi promised to investigate and jail the looters of state assets. Three years ago Odinga started legal action against Saitoti and other senior Treasury officials for their alleged role in the POINTERS 8 Goldenberg scandal, which cost the state some US$400 million and the suspension of aid from the International Monetary Fund. Such details are obscured beneath the greater game. Mozambique, Horn The core leaders of the Rainbow Alliance are Saitoti (Kikuyu-Maasai/Rift Valley province), Odinga of Africa, (Luo/Nyanza), Joseph Kamotho (Kikuyu/Central) and Kalonozo Musyoka (Kamba/Eastern). They muster enough nationwide support to wound Moi’s Uhuru project, but not to kill it, and their weight was Mauritania & Africa/ reduced last week by the loss of Transport Minister Musalia Mudavadi (Luhya/Western), an amiable Development but spineless figure. He said he had searched his conscience, and decided to forgo his own presidential ambitions and back Uhuru in the national interest. 13 September 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 18 Two unflattering interpretations greeted Mudavadi’s desertion. First, called the presidential and parliamentary elections for the end of that he was made an offer he couldn’t refuse by Moi’s personal aide December. Joshua Kulei and four others who visited him at home at 6 am on 3 NAK’s biggest problem is its purpose: to choose a consensus September; six hours later he telephoned Odinga to tell him he was presidential candidate. KANU’s disarray makes that hard. NAK quitting. Alternatively, Mudavadi may believe that the Uhuru project cannot name its candidate until the ruling party does so. The DP brings is in deep trouble; by rejoining Moi at this critical time he could the most money and probably the most votes to the NAK alliance. Its position himself as first reserve for the presidential nomination, with leader, Kibaki, is the obvious opposition front-runner. But if Uhuru the possible consolation prize of the vice-presidency, still vacant after Kenyatta is KANU’s presidential candidate, Kibaki would have to Saitoti’s sacking. stand as a Kikuyu against a Kikuyu, which could halve his previous support. Neither Ngilu nor Wamalwa has captured Kenyans’ Taking sides imaginations. The academic and activist Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o is Tribalism looms, as usual. The Kikuyu multi-millionaire, Njenga admired but regarded as outside mainstream politics, a backhanded Karume, has defected to Uhuru Kenyatta (Kikuyu) from the opposition compliment. Democratic Party (DP), which is led by his old friend, another Kikuyu, Many believe the opposition would do best to corral a KANU Mwai Kibaki, (AC Vol 43 No 15). Karume sits in parliament for dissident such as Odinga or Saitoti, or even former Finance Minister Kiambaa in Central Province, and his farming and horticultural Simeon Nyachae; ex-KANU politicians tend to have more campaign businesses have sustained the DP finances. His fortunes have dipped funds than opposition activists. Odinga, though, is widely resented as in recent years, after a bruising battle with a KANU business front- a traitor who deserted the opposition and would not be welcomed back. man, Keitan Somaia, for control of several Nairobi hotels and a beer Saitoti and Nyachae are more serious runners, but old resentments run distribution contract. Karume, who is extremely business-minded, high against them. may have seen greater advantage in joining a Moi-backed Uhuru than Some oppositionists talk of limited cooperation with the Rainbow in sticking with Kibaki, already a two-time presidential loser. dissidents on issues such as constitutional and electoral reform. Last Karume’s politico-economic deal was sealed by a visit to Moi in week Saitoti appeared at a workshop with the Reverend Mutava Mombasa last month, and a long meeting with Uhuru’s mother, Mama Musyimi of the National Council of Churches of Kenya, who was Ngina Kenyatta. The Kenyatta, Moi and Karume family business campaigning, again, about making government more accountable. A empires are among the biggest in Kenya. Key areas of the Kikuyu Rainbow-opposition-civil society campaign for constitutional change heartland – Kiambu, Thika, Maragua and Murang’a – are warming to might wobble the KANU barons, especially if it looked like making Uhuru’s candidacy, and Karume’s move will shift more Kikuyu elections freer and fairer. politicians that way. The East African Standard, owned by KANU Two Nairobi lawyers, Tom K’Opere and John Njongoro, have supporters, reported that, of the 42 MPs in the former opposition launched a court action to stop the Chairman of the Constitutional stronghold of Central Province, 15 now actively back or tilt towards Commission, Yash Ghai, from drawing up a draft constitution, Uhuru and KANU; 21 still back opposition parties; six are undecided. claiming that his existing draft includes a recommendation to dismiss Uhuru’s candidacy has a similar effect in the other Kikuyu bastion, all serving judges and make them reapply for their jobs. KANU would Nairobi Province. love to see constitutional reform tied up in arcane legal argument until Given 50 per cent of support in Nairobi, Central and Moi’s own Rift the elections are over in December.

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