Uhuru and Ruto must not run for the presidency

Not-so-clever words by Attorney General Githu Muigai notwithstanding, Kenya’s Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta the Head of the Civil Service Francis Muthaura have been forced to vacate office, pending determination of their cases by the International Criminal Court, now that it has confirmed charges against them.

Chapter Six of the Constitution, our Public Officers’ Ethics Act not to mention the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation agreements demand just that.

President Mwai Kibaki issued an incoherent statement as to the status of reforms of our criminal justice system and appointed an unnecessary panel on the way forward.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga spoke, disingenuously, of the need for justice for both the suspects and the victims. The cabals of parliamentarians and political hangers-on ranted and raved. But the writing was on the wall: Resign, step down or be suspended.

Justice

But having said that, can we answer the question of how the trial of four people will provide restorative justice to the victims and prevent violence in the future — how those trials will address not just the immediate causes of the violence but its root causes?

First, it is not just four people that Kenyans wish tried. Kenyans wish all tried — down to the smallest perpetrator for the smallest act. But it is clear there is no appetite for such trials — within the executive, parliament and even the criminal justice system (personified here by the former and current attorney-generals as well as the current director of public prosecutions).

Second, what the pursuit of criminal justice — albeit internationally—has brought to the table is leverage. It is doubtful that we would have moved on criminal justice reform nationally, to the extent that we have, without the ICC hovering above our heads.

Roots of violence

Third, addressing the deeper causes of the violence — economic, social and structural in nature— has also been leveraged by the ICC. What’s left is engagement with equality and anti-discrimination.

And the ever-so-thorny issue of land reform — at the Coast and the Rift Valley. Again, this is not an issue for which the executive or parliament has much appetite. Or any of the settlers and ex-executive/parliamentary types who are now the largest landowners at the Coast and in the Rift Valley.

The battle over land will, eventually, move beyond its current focus on illegally and irregularly acquired public land to more fundamental issues. Like those dispossessed under colonialism, the internally displaced, the landless and squatters.

The battle of land will also, eventually, force even harder questions upon us — such as how to move to a future beyond land.

Finally, to suggest that criminal justice shouldn’t be pursued as a distraction from those deeper causes is to ignore Kenya’s specific political history.

Kenyans are tired of being thrown the sops of reforms (even reforms we desperately wanted) in lieu of individual, personal responsibility for wrongdoing by politicians and public officers. We’ve had enough.

The relative good behaviour we’ve seen from the suspects since the ICC’s intervention is a testament to this fact. Accountability works. The fear of consequence works.

So we must insist that, pending a determination of innocence, they not be allowed to vie for elective office either.

L. Muthoni Wanyeki is doing her graduate studies at L’Institut d’etudes politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris, France