I was totally shocked in the wake of the announcement that Djibouti’s Mahamoud Ali Youssouf had been elected the African Union Commission chairman, late last Saturday, to see TV clips of youths from Kondele in Kisumu, chanting “Ruto Must Go!” Kondele is former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s most formidable stronghold, and a citadel of volatile politics.
It was apparent that in the minds of the youth, President William Ruto had led Raila to slaughter in Addis Ababa, and they were basically announcing a political divorce on behalf of the ODM boss.
I was shocked because no matter what one may fault Ruto about, his support for Raila’s candidature had been unequivocal, conducted with utmost class and dignity, and far exceeded what President Uhuru Kenyatta had done for Ambassador Amina Mohamed when she ran for the same AU post in 2017.
In a big way, Ruto had been a relentless resilient champion for Raila, opening presidential doors across the continent, which enabled Odinga to bypass the delicate protocol barriers of Africa’s Big Men to access the AU voters, the presidents.
In fact, for the entire duration of the campaign, Ruto turned every bilateral and multilateral meeting with African leaders into a pitching session for Raila.
From where I sit, the President went beyond the call of duty, but other factors meant he fell just short. It is the nature of Kenya’s politics that political narratives conveniently bury the truth, even where such truth should be the ideal position.
No matter what Ruto would have done, his political opponents would have found fault anyway. In fact, if Raila had won, the trending narrative had already been that the President was doing it either to remove Raila from the 2027 presidential race, or to capture the ODM chief’s voting base for his own survival.
The truth, however, is that Kenya presented the candidate with the best credentials, but was let down by its own poor or virtually non-existent foreign policy. There is no denying that the election in Addis turned out to be a referendum on the place of Nairobi in the continent’s multilateral dynamics.
If there was a key lesson for the President and his government, it must be that the world is always watching and listening to your actions and words.
Nairobi may rightfully be the regional hub in every sense, but after two consecutive failed attempts to produce the AUC chair, it is safe to say that its influence on the continent is diminishing fast.
Unfortunately, after several foreign policy failures, it doesn’t appear that the President is doing much to improve this.
Ahead of the AU vote on Saturday, the unity of the EAC bloc had already been in doubt, with questions lingering about whether the Democratic Republic of Congo would support the Kenyan candidate.
As if on cue, the M23 rebels in Eastern DRC were entering the key town of Bukavu, just as the African leaders were preparing to vote on Saturday.
While the rebels were entering the second largest city in Eastern Congo, burials were being conducted for some of the South African troops killed earlier in the conflict, during the rebels’ capture of Goma.
South Africa is SADC’s most influential nation. The situation in Congo had become a multi-regional complication in every sense.
It wouldn’t have been lost on political observers that the Congo River Alliance, a conglomeration Congolese rebel groups, including the M23, had announced its launch in Nairobi in December 2023, forcing the Congolese government to recall its ambassador in Kenya for consultations.
It was a failure on the part of Kenya’s intelligence services and the government, to allow a rebel group fighting a friendly regional ally to be launched on its soil. And it didn’t end there.
Later that same month, as Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi was seeking a second term, people usually associated with President Ruto consistently made remarks or social media posts suggesting they wanted Tshisekedi to fall.
Again, it painted a picture of truly naïve folks running the government in Kenya. Not many governments would allow its known operatives to antagonise an incumbent in a friendly nation.
It wasn’t just in Congo that Kenya seemed to act in this strange fashion. President Ruto had hosted the commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces at no less a place than Nairobi State House, in January 2024.
Again, the ruling military junta in Sudan, led by the Army’s General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, recalled their ambassador in Nairobi.
And this is before we throw in the declaration by the President, at the beginning of the Gaza war in late 2023, that Kenya stood with Israel. Africa’s Muslim North clearly made their displeasure known, when they rallied around the Djibouti candidate.
One could go on and on, but the picture that emerges is that the regime in Nairobi is yet to internalise the geopolitical philosophy of the interconnected interests of nations.
Every action has a reaction, and each such action is a potential path towards the creation of new friends and enemies.
The narrative out of Addis is that SADC betrayed Kenya, when its members opted to go with Youssouf, even though Raila would have been SADC’s natura; choice and a known personal friend of both Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Tshisekedi of DRC. But the DRC, whose war is causing divisions in the region and continent, is a member of both the EAC and SADC, and there were always going to be falling outs.
There is a strange twist to the results from Addis Ababa. Youssouf, a Francophone Muslim, has succeeded Moussa Faki of Chad, a fellow Francophone Muslim.
Youssouf will be deputised by another Francophone Muslim in Algeria’s Selma Malika Haddadi. It seems therefore that the divisions in Anglophone and sub-Saharan Africa were music to the ears of Francophone and Muslim Africa.
Indeed, a Kenyan MP has suggested, via a social media post, that the EAC should leave the AU following that debacle in Addis. It’s obviously an empty threat, but it speaks to the frustrations that come from the manner in which deals are cut on the election platform that end up with the clear marginalisation of others.
I noticed the pained and shocked expression on Raila’s face, while addressing the press immediately after the vote. He had clearly come for a straight win and must have been taken aback by the results. It would undoubtedly have been more painful to him after he realised that none of the contributors to his failure had anything to do with hima as a candidate.
Well, perhaps with the exception of his age, which was also mentioned as a factor. But the Raila who went on to honour the planned dinner at a hotel in Addis was vintage, giving a statesman’s speech and saying President Ruto was blameless.
Weaker souls would have locked themselves in a room to wallow in self-pity, but not the former PM. The wisdom to accept the outcome, and the maturity to understand that the contest was a much bigger issue than him, was probably the only crowning glory left after the election.
Perhaps one can add the 20 nations that stood with Raila to the end, which was no mean feat. Kenya now holds its breath for Raila’s next move!
The writer is a political commentator
