Elections and betrayals

ON March 9, Kenya’s Election Commission declared Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of the country’s first president and a suspect wanted for war crimes, Kenya’s next president. Mr Kenyatta won by a narrow margin, receiving 50.7 per cent of the vote.

While no warrant has been issued for his arrest, Mr Kenyatta faced criminal charges before the International Criminal Court at The Hague. These focus on his alleged involvement in the violent ethnic clashes that erupted in Kenya’s last elections in 2007.

Mr Kenyatta’s ascendancy to the presidency of a major African country portends some realignments in global power. In the run-up to elections in Kenya, the Obama administration’s top official on Africa, Johnnie Carson, said that “choices have consequences”.

According to the New York Times, this comment backfired within Kenya, energising support for Mr Kenyatta and his running mate and eventually propelling the former to victory. Mr Carson responded that one comment from the US did not have the capacity to swing an entire election.

However, regardless of whether or not American commentary on the issue was responsible for the outcome of the election, Mr Kenyatta’s election poses significant challenges to the US in the coming months and years.

Possibly elected because of his willingness to thumb his nose at the US, Mr Kenyatta may not be as interested in cultivating American support as his predecessors have been.

At the same time, while a move away from the US would have fiscal consequences for Kenya, which receives nearly $1 billion in American aid every year, it would have more significant consequences for the US. Not only has the latter relied on Kenya for assistance in the “war on terror”, for hunting down Al Qaeda operations in Somalia and in Kenya itself, it is also the US strategic centre in the region.

The American embassy in Nairobi is the largest such complex in subSaharan Africa and a centre for monitoring and maintaining American interests in the region.

Add to this the fact that Kenya continued to be courted by China, an emerging power in Africa, and you have a situation where the American imperative for maintaining a good relationship with Kenya, following a strategically unpleasant electoral out-

Rafia Zakaria come, is far greater than Kenya’s need for US support.

This is not the first time in the recent past when the results of elections — a ritual of democracy championed by the US — have yielded less than favourable results. Even more devastating to American strategic interests was the June election of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi to the Egyptian presidency. After a tumultuous revolution, which ousted former US ally president Hosni Mubarak from power, the election of an Islamist government — the worst scenario in the view of the US — had weakened the American imprint in the Middle East.

The visible effects of the weakening of the US position was seen late in 2012 when, following Israeli attacks on Gaza, it was the Egyptians who were able to step to the fore in brokering a ceasefire between the Israelis and the Palestinians; Americans watched from the sidelines with then secretary of state Hillary Clinton making a few encouraging statements.

Elections in Pakistan presage yet another strategic dilemma for the US. With the completion of the term of the current government and the imminent announcement of poll dates, American officials are undoubtedly weighing the likelihood of possible outcomes and what they would mean for US strategic interests in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Except for the current administration, which has during its tenure cooperated with the US, most national opposition parties in Pakistan have in the run-up to the election date announcement purported a distancing from the US as part of their electoral platform. While none have offered fiscal clarifications as to how they would make up the budgetary shortfalls resulting from such a position when and if they do manage to achieve electoral victories, most undoubtedly plan to use the position as a means of jockeying themselves into power on the back of popular anti-Americanism.

A worst-case scenario for the US would be the election of a hard-line government that sees no possibility of cooperation with the US on any front and a complete renunciation of all forms of American aid. While such an outcome seems unlikely (let alone unfeasible given Pakistan’s own strategic imperatives) it would mean a severe blow to aspects of the “war on terror” in this region. It is perhaps these very concerns that have led to the US taking pre-emptive defensive stances, such as the statement last week which alleged that two drone attacks that took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had not been conducted by the CIA. The electoral victory of parties that have promised a cessation of drone attacks and an end to perceived Pakistani capitulations would not, taken by itself, have been debilitating to the US.

However, when added to the changes that have taken place in Egypt, and now in Kenya, they could point cumulatively to a realignment that would have a significant impact on the “war on terror” and the hunt for Al Qaeda that has determined American coalitions for the past decade. With long-standing alliances crumbling to democratic upheavals, and a new order ambivalent about the value of cooperating with the US, it is likely that the global game of cooperation will require new incentives and a new strategy of diplomatic overtures by the US.