Politics
Déjà Vu: Eerie Similarities Between the Congolese and Kenyan Elections
9 min read.It is time for citizens to reclaim elections and the democratic power that comes through the polls. For far too long, the state has been in control of a process that is, at its heart, about the people.
On Thursday, January 24, Felix Tshisekedi became the fifth president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Like many others in the region’s recent history, his was a contested victory, its legitimacy marred by suspicion regarding a range of issues throughout the electoral cycle, as well as by damning evidence that his main competitor, Martin Fayulu, another opposition candidate, was the true victor.
Tshisekedi’s inauguration, delayed for three days as controversy over the legitimacy of the results raged, was notable for significant gaps in attendance. The powerful Catholic Church, whose observers disputed the legitimacy of Tshisekedi’s victory, was absent. Representatives of Fayulu’s coalition also declined to be present. The European Union merely “noted” the result, and the African Union, usually reluctant to express any serious disagreement with members’ official results, also declined to congratulate Tshisekedi.
There was one foreign dignitary there, though: Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. His lone presence was striking, a vivid reminder of the contention that has marked all four of the elections in which he has participated. Indeed, from his vantage point in the audience, President Kenyatta may have experienced a case of déjà vu. It is, after all, difficult to look past the multiple similarities that marred both of the most recent Congolese and Kenyan election cycles.
In addition to a slew of irregularities in the lead-up to election day, civil society and opposition candidates in both countries provided hard evidence of important variations between official announced outcomes and what had been shown to the public. In both cases, electoral victories did not correspond to election results.
It is now possible to “win” elections without garnering the most votes; democratic elections have given way to electoral coups.
Hope deferred
The most recent Congolese and Kenyan electoral cycles began in a charged atmosphere, alive with hope and anticipation of change. In the DRC, the 2018 election was a long-awaited milestone: it marked the end of Joseph Kabila’s 18-year rule and was a first chance for the transfer of political power through democratic means. Despite ongoing violence and instability in some parts of the country, as well as Kabila’s moves to ensure his continued influence the country’s politics, citizens were highly engaged. In fact, the Catholic Church (CENCO) mobilised and deployed more than 40,000 observers around the country in a rigorous observation exercise.
The most recent Congolese and Kenyan electoral cycles began in a charged atmosphere, alive with hope and anticipation of change. In the DRC, the 2018 election was a long-awaited milestone: it marked the end of Joseph Kabila’s 18-year rule and was a first chance for the transfer of political power through democratic means.
Vibrant campaigns were also inspiring, and two of the three leading candidates were opposition figures. Two days before the election, one of them – Martin Fayulu – was polling with 47 per cent of voters’ support, almost double that of the next most popular candidate, opposition candidate Felix Tshisekedi. New York University’s Congo Research Group described the results as indicative of an electorate “eager for change.”
In 2017, Kenya’s citizens were similarly hopeful. Months of street protests, civil society advocacy campaigns, court battles and a joint parliamentary review of electoral administration had reformed significant parts of the electoral process. In fact, hard-won, new leadership at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), more fully integrated biometric voter registration and identification kits, rules requiring the IEBC to honour polling station-level results, and the creation of an online portal promising to show results forms in real time had renewed public faith in the credibility of the electoral process.
In both contexts, though, hope quickly eroded as it became clear that key parts of the electoral cycle had been taken over by power-hungry elites who used the trappings of elections to engineer their own “victories”.
State violence
Although a broad array of technical irregularities contributed to low electoral integrity in the DRC and Kenya, it is critical to remember that the state’s use of violence to intimidate, threaten and silence the public’s questioning and criticism exerted an insidious influence over the entirety of both processes.
In Kenya, the violent repression of peaceful protesters began as early as 2016, when security forces descended on anti-IEBC demonstrators. In 2017, the electoral cycle was bloodily punctuated by incidents that included the murder of infants and violent house-to-house operations in opposition areas.
In the DRC, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern over reports of the state’s use of excessive force, including live bullets, against opposition rallies. Human Rights Watch also reported the state’s use of arbitrary detention of opposition party activists, the firing of teargas and live ammunition to break up largely peaceful opposition rallies, and the closing of an international border to prevent a presidential aspirant from filing candidacy papers. Six months before election day, ongoing repression prompted the Catholic Church to write to the African Union. Its letter described “a crisis of confidence” in the electoral process.
The use of state-sanctioned violence indicated the authorities’ complete unwillingness to engage with the people; it was clear that elections would not be fair.
Voter registration
It was clear from early on in the process that something was amiss. In fact, registration processes in both countries revealed how deeply problematic political and logistical contexts – both of which presented significant challenges to inclusive processes – cast an early pall on the legitimacy of elections. In the DRC, rebel groups attacked DRC electoral commission (CENI) officials and attempted to prevent certain groups from registering. CENI itself was accused of incompetence, discriminating against certain ethnic groups, and accepting bribes in return for illegal registrations. In Kenya, certain minorities described their struggles to obtain the national identity cards that are necessary for voter registration, a process which has taken some individuals upwards of five years. Research revealed that “special vetting procedures,” which essentially ensured that IDs would not be processed, are discriminatorily applied to ethnic minorities. Registration was also marred by the continued use of the much-maligned “green book” and an audit that used sub-standard methodology and that failed to make its full report publicly accessible.
When the final voters’ rolls were released, there were more problems. In the DRC, an audit of the voter register revealed that the records of more than 6.5 million voters (16.6 per cent) lacked all ten fingerprints. It was reminiscent of the 2013 Kenyan election, when a “special list” of approximately 36,000 registered voters, also lacking fingerprints, appeared during the Supreme Court trial challenging the integrity of the election. In both cases, the election commission had failed to be forthright about the existence of such lists. In the DRC, five political parties demanded that voters lacking fingerprints be removed from the rolls altogether; protesters agreed. In 2017, the Kenyan voter register was similarly contentious, marked by the presence of, for example, more than a million records of deceased voters, thousands of incorrect records, and tens of thousands of duplicate records.
The courts
The Congolese and Kenyan processes both concluded with court cases challenging election results, and in both cases there was suspicion of serious executive interference. In the DRC, the Constitutional Court, made up of Kabila’s close allies, dismissed Fayulu’s petition as “unfounded” and claimed that it had failed to prove any inaccuracies in the results. The Court’s ruling was made in spite of widely reported evidence that Fayulu had won 60 per cent of the vote.
When the final voters’ roll was released, there were problems. In the DRC, an audit of the voter register revealed that the records of more than 6.5 million voters (16.6 per cent) lacked all ten fingerprints. It was reminiscent of the 2013 Kenyan election, when a “special list” of approximately 36,000 registered voters, also lacking fingerprints, appeared during the Supreme Court trial challenging the integrity of the election.
In Kenya, the Supreme Court boldly nullified the results of the August election. Its decision hinged on evidence of fraudulent forms and the IEBC’s refusal to comply with court orders that it open its servers for inspection. Although the petitioners in the October repeat election case also demonstrated evidence of irregular forms and differences between the IEBC’s “official” results and what the Commission had posted on the public portal, the Supreme Court ruled that there was insufficient evidence.
This ruling came after President Kenyatta made his intentions with regard to the Court clear. In fact, in the aftermath of the nullification, he publicly referred to the judges as “crooks” and promised to “revisit” the judiciary. Insecurity heightened days before the fresh election in October, when Deputy Chief Justice Mwilu’s driver was shot and seriously wounded. One day before the election, Chief Justice David Maraga announced that the Court, which had failed to achieve quorum, would be unable to hear a case that sought to postpone the elections.
By exerting influence over the judiciary, the state not only protected certain elites’ victories, it also controlled the narrative, establishing a certain amount of legitimacy around what would otherwise be a questionable result at best.
Equipment
The use of electoral technology also tainted both elections. In the case of Kenya, post-election investigations have made it clear that technology was little more than a tool for elites’ personal enrichment. Procurement scandals tainted the reliability of the equipment as well as its immunity to external hacking and interference. The reliability of digital systems became even more doubtful when, days before the August election, the IEBC’s head of IT was found murdered; his case has yet to be solved. Indeed, it was unsurprising when the electronic results transmission failed – just as it had in 2013 – and the IEBC once again turned to the manual collection of more than 40,000 paper forms from around the country.
In the DRC, voters were also suspicious of technology. In fact, public protests called for authorities to abort the idea. Days before the election, a fire destroyed 70 per cent of the machines slated to be used in Kinshasa; authorities suspected arson. CENI’s decision to use such technology, especially in light of poor infrastructure to support it, was questionable. In Kenya, the IEBC even attempted (unsuccessfully) to justify its abandonment of the results transmission system by claiming that the lack of 3G connectivity in some locations made it impossible for the system to work.
What has become apparent is that technology, while claiming to increase the credibility of elections, actually does more to build a wall between electoral processes and the voters. In fact, the complexity of digital systems makes them inherently inaccessible to the average voter. It is thus easier for manipulation to occur and go undetected.
Voting and results
Kenya and the DRC also restricted voting altogether for some citizens. In the DRC, roughly 1.2 million voters in three opposition strongholds were barred from casting their ballots because of health risks and security threats. In Kenya, voting in the October presidential election was first postponed and then cancelled altogether in 27 constituencies; nine per cent of registered voters were thus disenfranchised.
The last straw in both cases, however, was the state of the results. In the DRC, the powerful Catholic Church deployed more than 40,000 observers to polling stations across the country and found that election day was marred by the delayed opening of polling stations, the establishing of stations in prohibited areas, and problems with voting machines. It also scrutinised results forms, finding that Fayulu won 60 per cent of the vote, making him the clear victor. The African Union and the European Union both “noted” Tshisekedi’s apparent victory, pointedly choosing to withhold any congratulations.
What has become apparent is that technology, while claiming to increase the credibility of elections, actually does more to build a wall between electoral processes and the voters. In fact, the complexity of digital systems makes them inherently inaccessible to the average voter. It is thus easier for manipulation to occur and go undetected.
Kenya’s domestic observers also found multiple problems on the day of the election—in August and in October — including delayed opening of polling stations, insufficient materials in the stations, violence, malfunctioning voter identification kits, and problems with reliability of the voter register. These issues were compounded by evidence of highly questionably polling station forms, which were rife with errors. Forms featured mathematical inconsistencies, missing information, altered figures, the lack of IEBC signatures, and irregular printing. In fact, petitioners’ scrutiny of October results forms revealed that the IEBC’s “official” forms differed from forms that had been posted on the public portal and submitted to petitions as part of the Supreme Court case. Although these problems were sufficient for the Court to nullify the August elections, the Court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to annul the October polls.
Clearly, results have little value anymore.
Reclaiming elections
It is time for citizens to reclaim elections and the democratic power that comes through the polls. For far too long, the state has been in control of a process that is, at its heart, about the people.
First, it is critical for voters to demand some basic minimum standards of election administration. This begins with a clear and verifiable record of results. In Kenya, the IEBC has failed to publish polling station-level results for any of the elections it has overseen, leaving the public without the means to analyse, understand, and validate their own votes. In the DRC, CENI has to yet to publish polling station-level results.
Election results go hand in hand with voter registration details. In the aftermath of the August election, Kenya’s IEBC announced voter registration totals that differed from the officially gazetted totals; civil society questions about the differences remain unanswered. In the aftermath of the October repeat election, a summation of the county-level numbers of registered voters again showed differences. Public demands for greater transparency should start here; resulting questions and clarification will reveal the way forward in terms of urgent reforms.
Second, a re-engaged citizenry should think deeply about what elections mean and how to modify laws and practice to shape polls into participatory, meaningful exercises. This kind of evaluation begins with and is based upon the premise that elections are not a privilege; they are universal rights and it is the state’s duty to facilitate voters’ access to and participation in them.
It is time for citizens to reclaim elections and the democratic power that comes through the polls. For far too long, the state has been in control of a process that is, at its heart, about the people.
If voters understand elections as public services, as part of what governments owe their citizens, they may understand the importance of rethinking the status quo. This means questioning the very nature of political interaction. Elections do not have to be divisive, dangerous affairs that include “zoning,” hate speech and highly unequal playing fields. In fact, a shift away from the first-past-the post could incentivise and encourage politicians to broaden their support bases and adopt more moderate political platforms. In the long term, such a system could help bring voters on extreme ends of political divides closer together.
Third, citizens should demand more from their elected representatives. In an age of advanced digital technology and increasingly diverse ways of being in touch, the public may be able to interact with representatives on a more regular basis, questioning decisions and tracking things like parliamentary voting patterns. Such tools could enhance accountability and arm voters with better information for their future voting decisions. Widespread use of such tools could also result in more policy-oriented parties.
Finally, citizens can and should be proactive about claiming their space throughout the electoral process. This may involve watching and questioning things like boundary delimitation, voter registration and decisions about the use of technology. The more questions people raise over time, the greater the chances that electoral processes will become easier to understand and more transparent.
Votes matter; it’s time to make sure that results do, too.
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Politics
Being Black in Argentina
What does Javier Milei’s presidential victory mean for Argentina’s black and indigenous minorities?
On November 19, Javier Milei secured the presidency of the Republic of Argentina with 56% of the vote. However, his victory is expected to significantly impact a specific segment of the country.
During my six-month exchange in Argentina’s Venado Tuerto (pop. 75,000) in 2016, I encountered someone of shared Black ethnicity on the street only once. A person whom many locals incidentally mistook for me—along with a Cuban Black girl, the only black person like me in the whole high school. As insignificant as a census of this small city’s population may seem, it effectively illustrates a sobering reality: the presence of Black people in Argentina is sparse, and their numbers have dwindled over time.
“Hay más por otros lados, acá no llegaron” (There are more of them elsewhere, they have not arrived here) is a rhetoric prevalent among many Argentines, but the reality is quite dissimilar. Contacts between Argentina and Black people, particularly of African descent, date back to the 16th century transatlantic slave trade, when West and Central Africa people were brought by Spanish and Portuguese settlers to the coastal city of Buenos Aires, only to be sold and moved mostly within the Río de la Plata, present-day Argentina and Uruguay. In “Hiding in Plain Sight, Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic,” Erika Denise Edwards reports that between 1587 and 1640 approximately 45,000 African slaves disembarked in Buenos Aires. By the end of the 18th century, one-third of Argentina’s population was Black.
What, then, became of the Black African population in Argentina? Some attribute their decline to historical factors such as their active involvement in conflicts including the War of Independence against Spanish colonists (1810-1819) and the war with Paraguay (1865-1870), in which Black men often found themselves on the front lines, enduring the brunt of the attacks, or even choosing to desert and flee the country. These factors intersect with a gradual process of miscegenation and interracial mixing, leading to a progressive whitening of the population—both in terms of physical attributes and ideology.
Adding to this complex mix, political rhetoric comes into play. Influential Argentine leaders, such as Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in the 19th century, idealized white Europe not only as a model for overcoming the country’s socio-economic challenges but also as a narrative that implied the absence of Black people in Argentina, thereby erasing an integral part of the nation’s history.
Doing so has shrewdly allowed a country to avoid reckoning with its past of slavery and navigate the complexities of its presence, using the escamotage that there are no race-related issues in the country because there are no Black people. This assertion is incorrect for several reasons beyond those mentioned above. First, despite being imperceptible to the naked eye, there is a small but existing population of Afro-descendants in Argentina. Nevertheless, in my second stay in Argentina, this time in Buenos Aires, it became more apparent to me how a certain nationalistic current, in the footsteps of Sarmiento, proudly makes itself of this consistent lack of Black heritage. Comparing itself favorably to neighboring countries, this current boasts a notion of white supremacy in Argentina, which celebrates the Italian immigration from the 19th and 20th centuries as the foundation of national identity, while largely overlooking the historical legacy of African bodies that predates it.
As a result, even in a cosmopolitan capital city such as Buenos Aires, a significant portion of the white Argentine population based its identity on my opposite—not knowing that as an Afro-Italian, my Italian citizenship actually made them closer to my blackness and African roots than they wanted. Asserting that there are no racial concerns in Argentina is misleading. It amounts to the invisibilization of racial discrimination in a country where those who deviate from the preferred prototype, including Indigenous communities such as Mapuche, Quechua, Wichi, and Guarani, experience limited access to education and social services, and are disproportionately prone to experience poverty than their white counterparts.
Even within everyday discourse in Argentina, the assertion is refuted: many are labeled Black despite not matching the physical appearance associated with the term. The expression “es un negro” might refer to everyone who has darker skin tones, grouping them into a specific social category. However, beyond a mere description of physical attributes, “es un negro” delineates a person situated at various margins and lower rungs of society, whether for economic or social reasons. The appellation is also ordinarily used in jest as a nickname for a person who, of “black phenotype,” has nothing. The label “morocho” seems to be the most appropriate appellation for dark-skinned people in the country.
Argentine white supremacist identity is often matched by a certain right-wing political ideology that is classist, macho and, to make no bones about it, xenophobic. In the 2023 elections, such a systemic structure takes on the face of Javier Milei. The Argentine’s Donald Trump claimed in 2022 at the presentation of his book that he did not want to apologize for “being a white, blonde [questionable element], blue-eyed man.” With false modesty, the demagogue took on the burden of what it means in the country to have his hallmarks: privilege, status, and power.
Milei’s need for apologies should not revolve around his connotations but rather the proposals presented during his election campaign and outlined in his political program, which include the dollarization of pesos and the removal of government subsidies. Besides assessing if these actions would really benefit the vulnerable economy of the country, it’s worth questioning why it’s the middle-class, often white population that stands to suffer the least from such policies. They can afford to transact in dollars, weather an initial depreciation of their income, and provide for their children’s education without relying on government subsidies. In essence, they can do without the limited benefits offered by the Argentine state, given their already privileged positions.
The election of this politician not only adversely affects Black minorities, but also targets apparent minorities whom this divisive ideology seeks to erase, including Indigenous populations and the poorest segment of society—the current Argentinian “blacks”—who significantly enrich the Argentine populace. In such a scenario, one can only hope that the world will strive for a more consistent record of their existence.
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This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site every week.
Politics
Risks and Opportunities of Admitting Somalia Into the EAC
The process of integrating Somalia into the EAC should be undertaken with long-term success in mind rather than in the light of the situation currently prevailing in the country.
The East African Community (EAC), whose goal is to achieve economic and political federation, brings together three former British colonies – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania – and newer members Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and most recently the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Somalia first applied to join the EAC in 2012 but with fighting still ongoing on the outskirts of Mogadishu, joining the bloc was impossible at the time. Eleven years later, joining the bloc would consolidate the significant progress in governance and security and, therefore, Somalia should be admitted into the EAC without undue delay. This is for several reasons.
First, Somalia’s admission would be built on an existing foundation of goodwill that the current leadership of Somalia and EAC partner states have enjoyed in the recent past. It is on the basis of this friendship that EAC states continue to play host to Somali nationals who have been forced to leave their country due to the insecurity resulting from the prolonged conflict. In addition, not only does Somalia share a border with Kenya, but it also has strong historical, linguistic, economic and socio-cultural links with all the other EAC partner states in one way or another.
Dr Hassan Khannenje of the Horn Institute for Strategic Studies said: ”Somalia is a natural member of the EAC and should have been part of it long ago.”
A scrutiny of all the EAC member states will show that there is a thriving entrepreneurial Somali diaspora population in all their economies. If indeed the EAC is keen to realise its idea of the bloc being a people-centred community as opposed to being a club of elites, then a look at the spread of Somali diaspora investment in the region would be a start. With an immense entrepreneurial diaspora, Somalia’s admission will increase trading opportunities in the region.
Second, Somalia’s 3,000 km of coastline (the longest in Africa) will give the partner states access to the Indian Ocean corridor to the Gulf of Aden. The governments of the EAC partner states consider the Indian Ocean to be a key strategic and economic theatre for their regional economic interests. Therefore, a secure and stable Somali coastline is central to the region’s maritime trade opportunities.
Despite possessing such a vast maritime resource, the continued insecurity in Somalia has limited the benefits that could accrue from it. The problem of piracy is one example that shows that continued lawlessness along the Somali coast presents a huge risk for all the states that rely on it in the region.
The importance of the maritime domain and the Indian Ocean has seen Kenya and Somalia square it out at the International Court of Justice over a maritime border dispute.
Omar Mahmood of the International Crisis Group said that ”Somalia joining the EAC then might present an opportunity to discuss deeper cooperation frameworks within the bloc, including around the Kenya-Somalia maritime dispute. The environment was not as conducive to collaboration before, and perhaps it explains why the ICJ came in. Integrating into the EAC potentially offers an opportunity to de-escalate any remaining tensions and in turn, focus on developing mechanisms that can be beneficial for the region.”
Nasong’o Muliro, a foreign policy and security specialist in the region, said: “The East African states along the East African coast are looking for opportunities to play a greater role in the maritime security to the Gulf of Aden. Therefore, Somalia joining the EAC bloc will allow them to have a greater say.”
Third, Somalia’s membership of the Arab League means that there is a strong geopolitical interest from Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. However, Somalia stands to gain more in the long-term by joining the EAC rather than being under the control of the Gulf states and, to a large extent, Turkey. This is because, historically, competing interests among the Gulf states have contributed to the further balkanisation of Somalia by some members supporting breakaway regions.
On the other hand, the EAC offers a safer option that will respect Somalia’s territorial integrity. Furthermore, EAC partner states have stood in solidarity with Somalia during the difficult times of the civil conflict, unlike the Gulf states. The majority of the troop-contributing countries for the African Union Mission to Somalia came from the EAC partner states of Uganda, Kenya and Burundi. Despite having a strategic interest in Somalia, none of the Gulf states contributed troops to the mission. Therefore, with the expected drawdown of the ATMIS force in Somalia, the burden could fall on the EAC to fill in the vacuum. Building on the experience of deploying in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, it is highly likely that it could be called upon to do the same in Somalia when ATMIS exits by 2024.
The presence of the Al Shabaab group in Somalia is an albatross around its neck such that the country cannot be admitted into the EAC without factoring in the risks posed by the group.
According to a report by the International Crisis Group, the government of Somalia must move to consolidate these gains – especially in central Somalia – as it continues with its offensive in other regions. However, Somalia may not prevail over the Al Shabaab on its own; it may require a regional effort and perhaps this is the rationale some policymakers within the EAC have envisioned. If the EAC can offer assurances to Somalia’s fledgling security situation, then a collective security strategy from the bloc might be of significance.
Somalia’s admission comes with risks too. Kenya and Uganda have in the past experienced attacks perpetrated by Al Shabaab and, therefore, opening up their borders to Somalia is seen as a huge risk for these countries. The spillover effect of the group’s activities creates a lot of discomfort among EAC citizens, in particular those who believe that the region remains vulnerable to Al Shabaab attacks.
If the EAC can offer assurances to Somalia’s fledgling security situation, then a collective security strategy from the bloc might be of significance.
The EAC Treaty criteria under which a new member state may be admitted into the community include – but are not limited to – observance and practice of the principles of good governance, democracy and the rule of law. Critics believe that Somalia fulfils only one key requirement to be admitted to the bloc – sharing a border with an EAC partner state, namely, Kenya. On paper, it seems to be the least prepared when it comes to fulfilling the other requirements. The security situation remains fragile and the economy cannot support the annual payment obligations to the community.
According to the Fragility State Index, Somalia is ranked as one of the poorest among the 179 countries assessed. Among the key pending issues is the continued insecurity situation caused by decades of civil war and violent extremism. Furthermore, Human Rights Watch ranks Somalia low on human rights and justice – a breakdown of government institutions has rendered them ineffective in upholding the human rights of its citizens.
Somalia’s citizens have faced various forms of discrimination due to activities beyond their control back in their country. This has led to increasingly negative and suspicious attitudes towards Somalis and social media reactions to the possibility of Somalia joining the EAC have seen a spike in hostility towards citizens of Somalia. The country’s admission into the bloc could be met with hostility from the citizens of other partner states.
Dr Nicodemus Minde, an academic on peace and security, agrees that indeed citizens’ perceptions and attitudes will shape their behaviour towards Somalia’s integration. He argues that ”the admission of Somalia is a rushed process because it does not address the continued suspicion and negative perception among the EAC citizens towards the Somali people. Many citizens cite the admission of fragile states like South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo as a gateway of instability to an already unstable region”.
Indeed, the biggest challenge facing the EAC has been how to involve the citizens in their activities and agenda. To address this challenge, Dr Minde says that ’’the EAC needs to conduct a lot of sensitisation around the importance of integration because to a large extent many EAC citizens have no clue on what regional integration is all about”. The idea of the EAC being a people-centred organisation as envisioned in the Treaty has not been actualised. The integration process remains very elitist as it is the heads of state that determine and set the agenda.
The country’s admission into the bloc could be met with hostility from the citizens of other partner states.
Dr Khannenje offers a counter-narrative, arguing that public perception is not a major point of divergence since “as the economies integrate deeper, some of these issues will become easy to solve”. There are also those who believe that the reality within the EAC is that every member state has issues with one or the other partner state and, therefore, Somalia will be in perfect company.
A report by the Economic Policy Research Centre outlines the various avenues through which both the EAC and Somalia can benefit from the integration process and observes that there is therefore a need to fast-track the process because the benefits far outweigh the risks.
EAC integration is built around the spirit of good neighbourliness. It is against this backdrop that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has extended the goodwill to join the EAC and therefore, it should not be vilified and condemned, but rather embraced. As Onyango Obbo has observed, Somalia is not joining the EAC – Somalia is already part of the EAC and does not need any formal welcoming.
Many critics have argued that the EAC has not learnt from the previous rush to admit conflict-plagued South Sudan and the DRC. However, the reality is that Somalia will not be in conflict forever; at some point, there will be tranquillity and peace. Furthermore, a keen look at the history of the EAC member states shows that a number of them have experienced cycles of conflict in the past.
Somalia is, therefore, not unique. Internal contradictions and conflict are some of the key features that Somalia shares with most of the EAC member states. The process of integrating Somalia into the EAC should, therefore, be undertaken with long-term success in mind rather than in the light of the situation currently prevailing in the country.
Politics
The Repression of Palestine Solidarity in Kenya
Kenya is one of Israel’s closest allies in Africa. But the Ruto-led government isn’t alone in silencing pro-Palestinian speech.
Israel has been committing genocide against the people of Occupied Palestine for 75 years and this has intensified over the last 30 days with the merciless carpet bombing of Gaza, along with raids and state-sanctioned settler violence in the West Bank. In the last month of this intensified genocide, the Kenyan government has pledged its solidarity to Israel, even as the African Union released a statement in support of Palestinian liberation. While peaceful marches have been successfully held in Kisumu and Mombasa, in Nairobi, Palestine solidarity organizers were forced to cancel a peaceful march that was to be held at the US Embassy on October 22. Police threatened that if they saw groups of more than two people outside the Embassy, they would arrest them. The march was moved to a private compound, Cheche Bookshop, where police still illegally arrested three people, one for draping the Palestinian flag around his shoulders. Signs held by children were snatched by these same officers.
When Boniface Mwangi took to Twitter denouncing the arrest, the response by Kenyans spoke of the success of years of propaganda by Israel through Kenyan churches. To the Kenyan populous, Palestine and Palestinians are synonymous with terrorism and Israel’s occupation of Palestine is its right. However, this Islamophobia and xenophobia from Kenyans did not spring from the eternal waters of nowhere. They are part of the larger US/Israel sponsored and greedy politician-backed campaign to ensure Kenyans do not start connecting the dots on Israel’s occupation of Palestine with the extra-judicial killings by Kenyan police, the current occupation of indigenous people’s land by the British, the cost-of-living crisis and the IMF debts citizens are paying to fund politician’s lavish lifestyles.
Kenya’s repression of Palestine organizing reflects Kenya’s long-standing allyship with Israel. The Kenyan Government has been one of Israel’s A-star pupils of repression and is considered to be Israel’s “gateway” to Africa. Kenya has received military funding and training from Israel since the 60s, and our illegal military occupation of Somalia has been funded and fueled by Israel along with Britain and the US. Repression, like violence, is not one dimensional; repression does not just destabilize and scatter organizers, it aims to break the spirit and replace it instead with apathy, or worse, a deep-seated belief in the rightness of oppression. In Israel’s architecture of oppression through repression, the Apartheid state has created agents of repression across many facets of Kenyan life, enacting propaganda, violence, race, and religion as tools of repression of Palestine solidarity organizing.
When I meet with Naomi Barasa, the Chair of the Kenya Palestine Solidarity Movement, she begins by placing Kenya’s repression of Palestine solidarity organizing in the context of Kenya as a capitalist state. “Imperialism is surrounded and buffered by capitalistic interest,” she states, then lists on her fingers the economic connections Israel has created with Kenya in the name of “technical cooperation.” These are in agriculture, security, business, and health; the list is alarming. It reminds me of my first memory of Israel (after the nonsense of the promised land that is)—about how Israel was a leader in agricultural and irrigation technologies. A dessert that flowed with milk and honey.
Here we see how propaganda represses, even before the idea of descent is born: Kenyans born in the 1990s grew up with an image of a benign, prosperous, and generous Christian Israel that just so happened to be unfortunate enough to be surrounded by Muslim states. Israel’s PR machine has spent 60 years convincing Kenyan Christians of the legitimacy of the nation-state of Israel, drawing false equivalences between Christianity and Zionism. This Janus-faced ideology was expounded upon by Israel’s ambassador to Kenya, Michel Lotem, when he said “Religiously, Kenyans are attached to Israel … Israel is the holy land and they feel close to Israel.” The cog dizzy of it all is that Kenyan Christians, fresh from colonialism, are now Africa’s foremost supporters of colonialism and Apartheid in Israel. Never mind the irony that in 1902, Kenya was the first territory the British floated as a potential site for the resettlement of Jewish people fleeing the pogroms in Europe. This fact has retreated from public memory and public knowledge. Today, churches in Kenya facilitate pilgrimages to the holy land and wield Islamophobia as a weapon against any Christian who questions the inhumanity of Israel’s 75-year Occupation and ongoing genocide.
Another instrument of repression of pro-Palestine organizing in Kenya is the pressure put on Western government-funded event spaces to decline hosting pro-Palestine events. Zahid Rajan, a cultural practitioner and organizer, tells me of his experiences trying to find spaces to host events dedicated to educating Kenyans on the Palestinian liberation struggle. He recalls the first event he organized at Alliance Français, Nairobi in 2011. Alliance Français is one of Nairobi’s cultural hubs and regularly hosts art and cultural events at the space. When Zahid first approached Alliance to host a film festival for Palestinian films, they told him that they could not host this event as they already had (to this day) an Israeli film week. Eventually, they agreed to host the event with many restrictions on what could be discussed and showcased. Unsurprisingly they refused to host the event again. The Goethe Institute, another cultural hub in Kenya that offers its large hall for free for cultural events, has refused to host the Palestinian film festival or any other pro-Palestine event. Both Alliance and Goethe are funded by their parent countries, France and Germany respectively (which both have pro-Israel governments). There are other spaces and businesses that Zahid has reached out to host pro-Palestine education events that have, in the end, backtracked on their agreement to do so. Here, we see the evolution of state-sponsored repression to the private sphere—a public-private partnership on repression, if you will.
Kenya’s members of parliament took to heckling and mocking as a tool of repression when MP Farah Maalim wore an “Arafat” to Parliament on October 25. The Speaker asked him to take it off stating that it depicted “the colors of a particular country.” When Maalim stood to speak he asked: “Tell me which republic,” and an MP in the background could be heard shouting “Hamas” and heckling Maalim, such that he was unable to speak on the current genocide in Gaza. This event, seen in the context of Ambassador Michael Lotem’s charm offensive at the county and constituency level, is chilling. His most recent documented visit was to the MP of Kiharu, Ndindi Nyoro, on November 2. The Israeli propaganda machine has understood the importance of County Governors and MPs in consolidating power in Kenya.
Yet, in the face of this repression, we have seen what Naomi Barasa describes as “many pockets of ad hoc solidarity,” as well as organized solidarity with the Palestinian cause. We have seen Muslim communities gather for many years to march for Palestine, we have seen student movements such as the Nairobi University Student Caucus release statements for Palestine, and we have seen social justice centers such as Mathare Social Justice Centre host education and screening events on Palestinian liberation. Even as state repression of Palestine solidarity organizing has intensified in line with the deepening of state relations with Apartheid Israel, more Kenyans are beginning to connect the dots and see the reality that, as Mandela told us all those years ago, “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians.”
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This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site every week.
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