Egg on the face or the scent of roses?

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga asks some officers in his office to step down over corruption and orders the suspension of two ministers having, at the very least, political responsibility for graft in their dockets.

A few hours later, President Mwai Kibaki overrules him, citing a lack of consultation.

The ministers report to work defiantly the next day, arguing that the president is their appointing authority.

The PM asks mediator Kofi Annan to intervene.

The ministers on the PM’s side of the grand coalition government declare their intention to henceforth boycott cabinet meetings.

Then MPs on the president’s side work furiously on plans to declare the vice-president leader of government business in parliament.

Debate rages as to the coalition’s future.

Meanwhile, the shilling immediately loses value, a fact implying that the longer this saga goes on, the more the wishful thinking around economic growth projections will be proved to be just that, wishful thinking.

But, as the violence that followed the 2007 elections showed, who gives a damn about ordinary citizens or even the economy, unless and until politicians’ individual economic interests are at stake.

But all this is beside the point; the point really is whether the coalition is in a crisis.

Let us recall, first of all, that the political settlement resulting in the formation of the coalition was merely a ceasefire, a truce, an elite consensus.

Elites come to consensus positions essentially because of self-interest – usually short-term – but sometimes enlightened or more long-term.

Let us also recall then that the context and situation have already, as predicted at the time, changed.

The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the Party of National Unity (PNU) are still the coalition’s formal parties.

But their internal dynamics changed almost as soon as it was clear that the more substantive content inserted in the mediation agreement would, in fact, have to at least appear to be addressed.

Finally, let us consider what possibilities there are as an end-game or logical outcome of the coalition’s collapse: Another round of elections.

Rationally, the Interim Electoral Commission of Kenya is still in no position to hold elections – it still needs to reconstruct the voters’ register, for God’s sake!

In addition, we are not clear whether or not the Committee of Experts and the Parliamentary Select Committee will affirm the Independent Review Commission’s recommendation that we move towards an electoral system based on mixed-member proportional representation.

And, if they do not, the Independent Boundaries Review Commission has just started re-delineating constituencies.

More cynically, it is clear from the sputtering out of the proposed Kalenjin, Kamba and Kikuyu alliance that an ethnically based, numerical and supposedly winning formula for those with the shared accountability interests referred to above has yet to be agreed upon.

There is, no doubt, another, equally cynical formula in the works, but it has yet to be revealed to us.

Across the divide is an increasingly slim constituency around the PM; if he loses the Coast and Rift Valley provinces, it is not clear what else he has up his sleeve.

The moral of the story is that nobody is ready for elections.

The rational position then, re-confirmed by this latest coalition spat, is that it will continue to hold, although alliances within it will shift, and continue to shift, as old school 'political strategising' continues.

The coalition will continue to hold – if only because there is as yet no possible alternative.

Our task is therefore not to concern ourselves too much with the so-called crisis.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.
* This article was first published by The East African.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.