We need an interventionist economic approach

The three-day protest called for last week started with a high on Wednesday but had generally fizzled out by Friday. It was just another episode in the unfolding political drama. Leaders’ belligerence, confrontation between followers and the police, bloodshed, damage, deaths.

It is a surreal experience listening to the two camps gloat about “their success” – one trumpeting police success for repulsing the demonstrators and the other hailing fearless protesters for effectively shutting down the country.

There is no reason to expect that President William Ruto and Mr Odinga will soon meet, although politics does throw up crazy surprises. However, none is publicly giving the impression that they are ready to negotiate. The President says he is willing to meet and talk but will not discuss power-sharing in any form or shape – it has to be discussion about easing the burden the common person is bearing just to stay alive in Kenya.

Mr Odinga rejects the notion that he wants a power-sharing deal. He says he wants the discussions to focus on the issues that his party raised and which formed part of the agenda for discussion by the joint parliamentary committee that folded even before the talks started – a clear hint that the positions taken even at start of the discussions, were untenable.

Each side is blaming the other, as will always happen when opposing parties start bargaining without clear sight of what could be one’s most acceptable negotiated position at conclusion of the talks.

It is strange, for instance, that the Azimio team insists that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) be compelled to open the servers containing the 2022 election records, fully aware that the matter of the legality of the results of the 2022 presidential vote was determined by the Supreme Court. The losers said they did not agree with the verdict but they would respect it.

So why can’t they let the matter rest knowing that the government views the insistence that servers be opened as questioning its legitimacy and as an attempt to create a constitutional crisis and potentially provoke an overthrow of the government? If the government is willing to discuss and review the process of hiring the IEBC commissioners, why not use that as an important step towards reforming that whole system to avoid future electoral crises?

Poisoned environments

It is not a surprise that the talks collapsed and there is no possibility that discussions under the current poisoned environments will be successful. Business leaders, religious leaders, the media, the diplomatic community have all made passionate pleas that the two parties talk to save the country from collapse.

But what new paradigms are the two going to discuss that will ensure lasting peace and construct a substructure that will allow the creation of a true democracy (in whatever form) to take root and thrive? In all likelihood, any talks will seek to cobble together an agreement that bandages the wounds, applies some balm by way of accommodative arrangements to have more beaks in the bin, and buys temporary peace until 2027.

We saw it with the famous 1997 Inter-Party Parliamentary Group deal (IPPG) reform package that appeared to address some fundamental issues around electoral freedoms, curtailing Executive powers, etc. but failed to resolve underlying challenges that bubbled over into the calamitous 2007/2008 conflict. This is what precipitated the Kofi Annan-brokered power-sharing deal between President Mwai Kibaki and Mr Odinga.

Jurisprudential issues

Again, it was a tenuous arrangement that could have stabilized the country if the full extent of the Serena Agreement was implemented. This did not happen and the 2013 election results inevitably got trapped in the whirlpool of unresolved legal, constitutional, historical and jurisprudential issues, forcing President Uhuru Kenyatta into an ill-thought-out handshake with Mr Odinga.

This arrangement effectively locked out then deputy, now President Ruto from the centre of power and made him a bitter and angry man. He has not overcome that anger, adding a dangerous element of personal loathing in the current stand-off.

All this adds up to a highly complicated political situation. Luckily, if all stood back for a moment to reflect, it is not a new conflict. Just a new episode. Its roots flow deep into our past. Solutions lie in our archives.

Any meaningful talks must start from the point of conceding that Mr Ruto is in power and will fight to stay there. That Mr Odinga should seek a final lasting solution for Kenya – promoting talks that seek full implementation of the many recommendations made in the past – the Kriegler Report, the Serena Agreements, etc. He will not benefit directly from this but it sure will be a legacy befitting a truly selfless son of Kenya.

Mr Mshindi, a former editor-in-chief of Nation Media Group, is now consulting. [email protected]; @TMshindi)