President William Ruto delivers Reports on Peace and Security and AU institutional reforms as the AU Champion for Institutional Reforms at the 38th African Union Ordinary Assembly in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on February 16, 2025.
President William Ruto and Kenya’s foreign policy are in the spotlight after the country’s candidate, Raila Odinga, failed in his bid to be elected chairman of the African Union Commission (AUC) in the polls held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Saturday.
The former prime minister lost to Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahmoud Youssouf in an election in which Kenya used millions of shillings.
Foreign policy, legal and political analysts point out that President Ruto’s comments and standpoints on various issues touching on the African continent and beyond ultimately became a baggage that sabotaged Mr Odinga, throwing him into the deep end of the sea and effectively sinking his prospects of victory.
Mr Odinga has, however, said that President Ruto did enough to support his campaign and that the loss was as a result of other factors beyond them.
However, experts argue that Mr Odinga was naive to depend on Dr Ruto and expect miracles, with Kenya’s wishy-washy foreign policy spearheaded by Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi not doing him any good.
Foreign policy expert Prof Peter Kagwanja and city lawyer David Ochami believe that Mr Odinga lost largely because of President Ruto’s diplomatic gaffes, a position shared by Mr Mikhail Nyamweya, also an expert in foreign policy.
They singled out his comments on the Sahrawi issue, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) crisis, his infamous phone call with France President Emmanuel Macron in the wake of Goma's fall to M23 rebels as well as his behaviour on Sudan, Russia-Ukraine crisis and Israel's war with Hamas.
“In large part, Mr Odinga lost because he was fronted by a bad salesman in President Ruto whose recent adventures in the DRC and Sudan has scandalised most leaders in the East and Horn of Africa region,” said Mr Ochami.
“This means Ruto was a liability to Mr Odinga’s campaign and he was doomed to fail from the very start. He was trapped by circumstances.”
Prof Kagwanja said that Mr Odinga’s defeat offers a perfect stock-taking moment for Kenya’s Euro-African foreign policy.
“With President Ruto’s tweet that Israel needs protection against terrorists, where he seemed to take sides in the ongoing Israel-Palestinian crisis, Kenya could hardly count on the vote of the 19 largely Muslim states in Africa,” said Prof Kagwanja.
He revealed that “this hard-hearted comment was also highly impervious to the collective position of African Union (AU), that runs AUC in terms of policy formulation and oversight, which backs a two-state solution to the world’s most protracted and deadly crisis”.
The South African Development Community (SADC) led by South Africa took a different tangent to Kenya’s in the Israel-Palestine crisis, accusing the former of fermenting genocide in Gaza Strip in a landmark case filed at the International Court of Justice that sits in the Netherlands.
“With this dichotomy, it was expected that SADC would not support the Kenyan candidate for the AUC top seat,” said Mr Nyamweya.
While Mr Odinga needed President Ruto to endorse him and open State coffers for his expensive AU campaign, the ultimate question is whether Kenya’s new style of diplomacy in the Ruto-era was a heavy millstone around Mr Odinga’s neck.
Congo River Alliance
“President Ruto’s comments on Israel and Palestine were not helpful,” said Prof Kagwanja.
Tellingly, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was an honoured AU guest in Addis Ababa during the election on Saturday and was afforded an opportunity to address the AU leadership.
President Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza regime has in the recent past come under increasing pressure over its role in stabilising the crisis-hit DRC, more so, in the wake of the activities of the rebels and opposition politicians apparently operating in Nairobi.
In 2023, M23 rebel leader Bertrand Bisimiwa, and former election chief Mr Corneille Nangaa, publicly launched in Nairobi the Congo River Alliance — a political-military alliance whose objective is to dethrone DRC President Felix Tshisekedi’s regime.
The launch, which happened just days to the elections in the conflict-ravaged Central African country, caused a diplomatic spat between Kenya and the DRC — both nations belong to the East African Community (EAC).
Irked by Kenya, the DRC recalled its envoy in Nairobi for “consultations” and summoned the Kenyan ambassador in Kinshasa.
The M23 rebel group continues to cause instability and deaths in the mineral-rich Eastern DRC, with Goma town falling to them.
Mr Nangaa, an opposition politician in the DRC, is the former head of the country’s electoral commission and is said to be exiled in Kenya.
Mr Ochami said that to make matters worse, President Ruto blundered by announcing that he had talked to French President Emmanuel Macron on the Congo issue, well aware that the Francophone countries in Africa are disassociating with France militarily and linguistically.
“You recall that in 2023 the Congo River Alliance, to which the M23 belongs, was publicly launched in Nairobi. You can't expect DRC and other African states to reward Kenya and Ruto for this misconduct,” said Mr Ochami, a position that was shared by Prof Kagwanja.
Recently, President Tshisekedi rebuffed mediation efforts by Dr Ruto to find a solution for the DRC crisis under the auspices of the EAC that President Ruto currently chairs.
President Tshisekedi accused Nairobi of insincerity towards a peaceful settlement in Goma — the largest town in the eastern DRC — resulting in the matter being co-handled with SADC.
“The President could have avoided that gaffe. It was not of any help to Mr Odinga,” said Prof Kagwanja.
Mr Nyamweya said that domestic political baggage, regional and the AU dynamic intricacies contributed to Mr Odinga’s loss.
“There are also Ruto's fledgling foreign policy decisions that poisoned Mr Odinga's bid,” said Mr Nyamweya.
Mr Ochami noted that President Ruto’s gaffes, notwithstanding, he did not support Mr Odinga because he wanted him to win the seat “but to get rid of him from the local political scene for his own selfish comfort”.
"The amount of effort Ruto put in these campaigns was suspect. It betrayed his determination to exile Raila from domestic politics for his own political survival. Mr Odinga came out as a tool for President Ruto's manipulation. Mr Odinga’s supporters ought to be ashamed of this manipulation of a statesman,” said Mr Ochami.
Prof Kagwanja argued that President Ruto’s pronouncements and actions have made Kenya lose its shine as an honest neutral broker in the East African region for which the AU had ring-fenced the seat.
Publicly accusing Kenya’s leadership of covert business deals with the Rapid Response Force (RSF) leader Mohamed Dagalo and supporting the rebels fighting the government, Sudan rejected Kenya’s role in mediating in the civil war in that nation.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has also accused Kenya of negatively personalising EAC’s mediation of the crisis in the eastern DRC.
“It doesn’t rain, it pours! DRC President, Felix Tshisekedi, accused Kenya of siding with Rwanda and being too soft on the M23 rebels, and turned to SADC for military support and to Angola for mediation,” said Prof Kagwanja.
This, he said, also made getting the vote of 16-member states of SADC, which had troops fighting in eastern DRC, a very tall order.
“Kenya’s virulently pro-West policy and status as a non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) ally of immediate former US President Joe Biden’s ultra-liberal Washington also alienated the country’s strong pan-African allies like South Africa,” Prof Kagwanja said.
He noted that South Africa “saw President Ruto more as a puppet of the West than a bonafide pan-African leader.”
“It is in this context that Ruto’s announcement that he had spoken to French President Macron on the DRC crisis was received in 21 French-speaking states in the AU experiencing a strong anti-French wave,” said Prof Kagwanja.
“Raila’s loss is a wake-up call for Kenya to return to its Africa-centred foreign policy based on national interests.”
Diplomatic misadventures
Mr Ochami said that in terms of profile on the African continent, Mr Odinga towers above President Ruto.
“President Ruto was a liability to Mr Odinga’s campaign because of his recent diplomatic misadventures. He has scandalised many African states,” he said.
Mr Ochami observed that “historically, much of Africa has distrusted Kenya for either sitting on the fence when needed most or supporting anti-Africa causes including during the fight against apartheid.”
“It's apparent President Ruto has come to symbolise much of what many African states distrust Kenya for. To that extent President Ruto, in a way, especially in the DRC crisis, sabotaged Raila's campaign,” Mr Ochami said, adding that Mr Odinga’s candidacy was doomed from the beginning due to peer rivalry in the EAC.
“Most African heads of state would rather have an AUC chairman from a nondescript state without much clout like Djibouti,” said Mr Ochami.
He said that EAC members are uncomfortable with Kenya acquiring more clout and a number of African leaders cannot stand a steadfast and strong candidate like Mr Odinga.
“You may ask what about Dr Nkosasana Dlamini Zuma from South Africa? She could be the exception to the hypothesis but l believe that although South Africa is stronger than Kenya in many ways it is peerless.”
Mr Ochami says that it’s apparent that the three EAC countries- Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi may have turned against Kenya in the final two rounds after seeing how SADC was voting.
He argues that Ethiopia could not vote for Kenya for various reasons including Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's displeasure with Nairobi due to the meddling in Sudan crisis.
“President Ruto began entertaining and inviting the RSF leaders when Mr Abiy was trying to mediate the Sudan crisis, which had the effect of scuttling that mediation,” says Mr Ochami.
In terms of trade, Ethiopia depends on Djibouti for over 80 percent of its imports and has lately had diplomatic problems with Somalia over Somaliland and, simultaneously President Ruto’s push for Somalia's entrance into EAC.
Many within Abiy's inner circle consider Ruto a tool of Somalia, never mind that Somalia announced the withdrawal of its own AUC candidate in favour of the Djibouti's.
As Kenya’s defeat in the AUC chairmanship settles, Mr Ochami says it is time for the country to reevaluate its foreign conduct.
This in light of also the failed bid by Kenya’s immediate former President Uhuru Kenyatta to have then Cabinet Secretary Ms Amina Mohamed become AUC chairman in 2017.
Kenya also failed in its bid to have Ms Mohamed become the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2020.
“Regarding the failed WTO bid, most Third World states that were voting opposed Kenya and Amina because in the early 2000 Kenya sided with Western nations and global pharmaceutical firms as India and China led the crusade for cheap ARVs and other critical medicines,” says Mr Ochami.
Kenya is in a very unique and strategic position, comparatively and has historic rivals in Tanzania and Somalia and lately Ethiopia.
But Uganda, the neighbouring country to the East, dominates Kenya politically because of President Yoweri Museveni’s attitude towards Kenya's presidents.
“In the recent years. President Museveni has tried everything to thwart and neuter Kenya's leaders for his own survival. That is why he's been uncomfortable with Mr Odinga’s presidency that in theory would signal his end,” says Mr Ochami.
