Kenya cracks down on leading members of the opposition

Kenyan authorities forced a key opposition backer to leave the country after his arrest triggered protests, as the state ordered other government opponents to surrender their passports.

Miguna Miguna, an advocate and self-declared “general” of the opposition National Resistance Movement, left Kenya on Tuesday, his lawyer Nelson Havi said on Wednesday.

Miguna said by text message from Amsterdam that he planned to challenge the deportation. “I have instructed a battery of competent advocates to ensure that the ongoing rogue purveyors of impunity are brought to book,” Miguna said. “They are not above the law, even though they behave as if they are.”

Kenya’s government is cracking down on the opposition after National Super Alliance leader Raila Odinga swore himself in as the socalled people’s president at a mock inauguration ceremony on January 30. Supporters of the alliance, known as Nasa, reject the outcome of an October presidential election, which was a repeat of an annulled August ballot that handed President Uhuru Kenyatta a second term.

Besides deporting Miguna, police arrested two opposition MPs for attending the swearingin and halted transmissions by three television stations that broadcast the event. While two channels have resumed broadcasts, Citizen TV remains off air.

The government’s approach has drawn criticism from US ambassador Bob Godec, who on February 5 faulted the government shutdown of the media and its failure to respect court orders to reopen the channels.

The state ordered Nasa technical adviser David Ndii and former opposition senator Johnson Muthama to surrender their passports, both said on Tuesday. Others ordered to hand in their travel documents included businessman Jimi Wanjigi, a financial backer of Nasa; Mombasa governor Hassan Joho; and Senator James Orengo, the Nairobibased Star newspaper reported.

“Kenyatta’s Jubilee government has been ham-fisted in how it has dealt with Mr Odinga’s resistance campaign and swearing-in,” Jared Jeffery, an analyst NKC African Economics in SA, said in a research note.

The Kenyan state had not made any attempt to arrest Odinga, a move that would probably cause widespread protests, Jeffery said.

The National Resistance Movement, an arm of Nasa, was banned by the government on January 30 after the mock inauguration.