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The Africa Confidential Blog
KENYA: Political chasm widens with calls for Kenyatta to be sworn in after Odinga announces boycott of fresh presidential elections
Patrick Smith
This week, the breaking news comes from Kenya with opposition leader Raila Odinga's withdrawal from planned fresh elections. The constitutional mess there contrasts tellingly with President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's elegant exit from power in Liberia as competitive multi-party elections are held there this week. With his eyes on Zimbabwe's elections next year, President Robert Mugabe is pushing back against his deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa in a cabinet reshuffle. And Nigeria sceptics admitted to being heartily impressed by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo who explained the government's plan for economic revival at a conference in London.
KENYA: Political chasm widens with calls for Kenyatta to be sworn in after Odinga announces boycott of fresh presidential elections
Minutes after opposition leader Raila Odinga announced he was pulling out of the rerun of the presidential elections, President Uhuru Kenyatta told a rally in southern Kenya that it would make no difference. 'We have no problem going back to the elections. We are sure we will get more votes than the last time.'
His supporters went further, arguing that without Odinga's participation there would be no need for an election and that Kenyatta should be sworn in immediately. No chance, say the leaders of Odinga's National Super Alliance (NASA) camp, the country is now facing a constitutional crisis.
Those behind Odinga's boycott want it to trigger a restarting of the electoral cycle with all parties allowed to participate in fresh elections within 90 days. NASA official are still insisting on the replacement of several top officials of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and sweeping reforms of electoral management before a new round of elections could be held.
The IEBC, which Odinga singled out for particularly harsh criticism at his press conference today, has called an emergency meeting to decide on the next steps. Whatever plan it announces is almost certain to trigger a resort to the Supreme Court by one side or the other.
Officials from both the Kenyatta and Odinga campaign are due in Europe and the United States this week to explain their position as outsiders become increasingly bemused by this extended electoral crisis and the economy slows down.
LIBERIA: Establishment and 'disrupter' candidates vye to succeed Johnson-Sirleaf in this week's landmark electionsPeople clutching voters' cards started queueing before dawn on 10 October across the country in elections in which 20 contenders are competing for the Presidency. It is the first time that an outgoing Head of State has organised multi-party elections on a universal franchise to choose a successor. It is also probable that the presidential elections will go to two rounds.
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has earned plaudits for keeping her distance from the race to succeed her and for insisting she will continue to live in Liberia after she leaves power. She would become the first retiring leader in the country's recent history to do so.
Most candidates in the race have paid lip-service to Johnson-Sirleaf's record of achievement but she has drawn criticism for appointing family members to key posts and failing to crack down harder on corruption. Some within her governing Unity Party fault her for unwillingness to offer a more enthusiastic endorsement of her Vice-President, Joseph Boakai, 72, who is running to succeed her.
In a speech in Washington last week, Johnson Sirleaf, 78, said she hoped the elections would usher in a new generation of leaders to build on her legacy in Liberia. Skipping a generation would rule out a government led by either of the front-runners: Boakai or Charles Brumskine, 66, another veteran politician.
Of the younger generation, Johnson-Sirleaf doesn't think highly of the former top footballer, George Weah, 51, who has chosen Jewel Howard, the former wife of gaoled military leader Charles Taylor, as his running mate. Some insiders say that Johnson-Sirleaf would have liked to back the candidacy of Alexander Cummings, 60, a youthful-looking businessman who returned to the country two years ago. We hear that Johnson-Sirleaf has held back from saying positive things about Cummings to avoid weakening her own party. All the parties are fighting legislative elections as well.
ZIMBABWE: Mugabe moves against his deputy Mnangagwa and promotes his 'homeboy' to finance post in reshuffleAfter months of bitter fighting in the ruling party over the succession, President Robert Mugabe's latest cabinet reshuffle undermines Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his allies. It is a decisive blow in favour of Mugabe's wife Grace, 52, whose faction in the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) has become a rallying point for opponents to Mnangagwa.
Mugabe has stripped Mnangagwa, 75, of the Justice Ministry, a key post which could determine the management of the sucession within the party and the country. Mugabe's long-time ally and former intelligence chief, Happyton Bonyongwe, takes over the Justice post.
This has been a bad year for Mnangagwa, who was hospitalised in South Africa in August complaining that someone had tried to poison him. Dismissing such claims as blatant lies, Grace Mugabe accused Mnangagwa of lacking patriotism and ratcheting up grievances in the ruling party.
Mnangagwa's ally and fellow lawyer, Patrick Chinamasa, has been moved from the Ministry of Finance, from where he was nudging through contentious economic reforms, to a new Ministry of Cyber Security. Although this new job will play an important role in quashing opposition campaigns, activists have ridiculed Chinamasa's obsession with social media calling him the 'Minister of Twitter and Whatsapp Affairs'.
In Chinamasa's place at the Finance ministry is Ignatius Chombo, the former Home Affairs minister who comes from Zvimba in Mashonaland West, a key local support base for Mugabe. There is still no organised challenge to Mugabe's continued rule within ZANU-PF. His latest appointments clearly strengthen the position of his wife within the political hierarchy.
NIGERIA: Vice-President Osinbajo talks up forex policy and investment revival but rules out a run for the presidency
In an assured performance in London on 9 October, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said that Nigeria had attracted pledged investments worth over US$20 billion this year as the economy recovers slowly from recession. Osinbajo, the lead author of Nigeria's medium-term economic reform programme, says the government plans to spend a third of this year's budget on roads, railways, ports and power stations.
A new 3,000 Megawatt power station in Lagos State, the country's commercial centre, is being planned and that will encourage more investors to set up productive ventures, added Osinbajo, who was speaking at the Financial Times 'Africa Summit' on 9 October. When asked at the meeting whether he would consider running for the presidency in 2019, Osinbajo replied with a smile that it 'wasn't on the cards'.
Earlier this year, Osinbajo won high praise when he took the helm of the country during President Muhammadu Buhari's lengthy periods of medical leave in London. There has still been no announcement about whether Buhari intends to stand for a second term in 2019 but there is an assumption that whoever wins the nomination will hail from one of the northern states. Osinbajo was born in Lagos in the south-west.
THE WEEK AHEAD IN BRIEF
SOUTH AFRICA: State electricity company seeks $115 million in compensation from McKinsey and Trillian after claims of corrupt payments
IMF/WORLD BANK: African finance ministers due in Washington DC as Chinese trade and ballooning commercial loans overshadow Bretton Woods' role
CONGO-KINSHASA: Opposition leader Moïse Katumbi pledges to return in December to fight presidential election, promising journalists seats on his plane
TANZANIA: Energy and Mining ministries broken up as Magufuli pushes ahead with economic nationalist agenda
