Kenya’s unending blunders in shaping its foreign policy

The  Kenyan delegation in their hundreds arrived in swag, dance and jubilation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, confident that Raila Odinga was bringing the African Union Commission chairperson position home.

The press interviews prior to the AUC race by President William Ruto and Raila’s allies were bullish, with nothing else in mind other than a win.

Foreign Affairs Minister Musalia Mudavadi said Raila’s AUC leadership would elevate Kenya’s influence and strengthen Africa’s collective voice on the global stage.

On the other hand, Djibouti’s candidate Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, arriving as the Foreign Affairs minister, had with him a very lean delegation.

His campaign was also low-key, often without much reporting.

“I don’t embarrass the countries that support me by saying they’re going to support me because the states have interests with Djibouti. These same states have interests with Djibouti, just as they have interests with Kenya or Madagascar,” Youssouf said.

“So it’s a question of approach and strategy. It’s true many of the statements made are campaign propaganda. In elections, there’s always campaign propaganda,” he added.

“I believe the final choice of the heads of state will go to the candidate they feel represents the ideal commission chairman at this moment in time.”

And so it was. In the seventh round, Youssouf won it with 33 votes. For the Kenyan delegation, unlike how they departed, they arrived back quietly before the noisy blame game started. Raila’s loss joins a series of others Kenya has suffered in regional and global races.

Then Foreign Affairs Minister Amina Mohamed, again seen as the favourite in the AUC race, lost to Moussa Faki of Chad in 2017. She again lost the World Trade Organisation director general election to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria in 2020.

In July 2022, then Foreign Affairs Minister Raychelle Omamo lost her bid for the International Fund for Agricultural Development presidency.

In February 2022, then Energy Minister Monica Juma dropped from the Commonwealth secretary general race citing “lack of adequate backing”.

In July 2023, Ambassador Nancy Karigithu, a renowned maritime expert, lost her bid to become the International Maritime Organization boss largely due to lack of state backing, although President Ruto had endorsed her.

The cold streak has raised questions on Kenya’s influence in the region and in the continent as well as its diplomatic standing. While President Ruto and allies maintain Kenya put forward “the finest” in the AUC race, it didn’t succeed in convincing the African leadership, as has been the case in the other contests.

Experts have cited diminishing influence in the region, ineffective diplomacy and Kenya’s attitude in engaging its neighbours.

Despite years of supporting the Somalia peace process, Nairobi and Mogadishu have had difficult diplomatic relations to the extent of severing relations and ending up at the International Court of Justice over the maritime dispute. When the court ruled in Somalia’s favour, Kenya rejected the verdict.

Somalia has on several occasions severed ties with Kenya, accusing it of meddling in its domestic affairs. Like Somalia, the DRC also recalled its envoy to Nairobi after M23 and other allied parties announced the formation of the Congo River Alliance in the capital, an issue President Ruto didn’t have qualms about.

Once again, Kenya, which was to take up the AU Commission chairmanship, is hosting Rapid Support Forces in Nairobi despite the Sudan government asking Kenya not to allow the move, further escalating the already fractured ties.

When the Sudan war broke out, Sudanese leader Abdel Fattah al Burhan rejected President Ruto — who was appointed to chair of the IGAD mediation Committee —for siding with RSF and harbouring them in Nairobi. He has been vindicated.

Commenting on the development on his X platform, senior counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi said that Kenya has “suddenly become a very destabilising force in the region”.

“Why invite a shifta to KICC to form a shifta government in exile? We must support the legitimate government of Sudan and stop entertaining a shifta and a few of his relatives,” he wrote.

South Sudan — a country Kenya was heavily involved in its birth — has had a bone to pick with Kenya under President Uhuru Kenyatta for hosting political detainees President Salva Kiir accused of being behind the 2013 coup.

“I am not happy with Kenya because, after the attempted Sudan coup of 2013, President Uhuru under IGAD took the lead and said he was coming to take the leaders that I had apprehended during the coup,” Kiir told Citizen TV in 2022.

“I told him that I could not hand over the people to him so that they could answer to charges and shed light on their role in the coup,” he added.

“But on that evening I tuned into Kenyan news where I saw President Uhuru receiving the detainees. They were later released and given travel documents and some went to Ethiopia, Europe and even America.”

Kenya has also picked trade wars with Uganda and Tanzania, which have necessitated exchange of delegations, visits and phone calls at the highest levels to calm the situation.

Interference is against the AU Constitutive Act, the UN Charter and Kenya Foreign Policy 2014 guiding principles of peaceful co-existence with neighbours and other nations and respect for the equality, sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.

Notably, these accusations are coming from EAC member states – DRC and Somalia – an organisation Kenya considers as the “most important foreign policy vehicle and major trading and investment ”hub”.

Foreign Affairs PS Korir Sing’oei notes that the EAC is the core of Kenya’s focus in foreign policy, considering the trade volumes that present the greatest potential.

“The core for us remains the East and Horn of Africa and then the broader Africa before we start to look outside towards Europe, Americas and the East,” Sing’oei said on Wednesday at a webinar on Kenya Foreign Policy.

Kenya has under President Ruto taken stances that depart from the AU positions. These include the attempt to withdraw the recognition of Sahrawi as well as siding with Israel on the Gaza war.

At a time there is anti-West wave on the continent, Ruto has been inconsistent on the Russia-Ukraine war, in some instances joining the West to condemn Russia. This doesn’t sit well with some capitals in Africa where Russia is gaining influence and departs from the non-alignment stance.

Kenya has also been perceived to be a Western proxy, especially with the recent deployment of troops to the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti that is widely seen to be at the behest of the US.

Sudan Vice President Malik Agar Eyreh in an open letter to Ruto on Thursday urged him to focus on his domestic affairs.

“It is essential to remind President Ruto that his own country-Kenya, to whom he owes a duty of care, faces numerous internal challenges, including youth unemployment, poverty and demands for transparency — issues that require his utmost attention. “How can he claim to mediate Sudanese affairs when he has never experienced the scale violence currently unfolding in Sudan?” Agar said.