Leaders insincere on threats of sanctions over Uhuru-Ruto win

By Onyango Oloo

There has been much talk recently in the media to the effect that an Uhuru Kenyatta-William Ruto victory in the March 4 General Election would trigger crippling international sanctions against Kenya.

Left, right and centre, both professional and recreational alarmists are warning Kenyans that there would be international consequences if the two became President and Deputy President.

Even in the outgoing President Kibaki’s inner circle, where they should know better, having turned their broad backs on the West and looked East in terms of trade for 10 good years, there are a few trembling voices warning that the aid strings could be cut and Kenyan flowers, tea and coffee exports rejected.

Yet others are saying that the tourists could stop coming in and cause unemployment in the thriving hospitality sector. One of the newspapers has even gone as far as claiming the UN Headquarters at Gigiri in Nairobi would pull out in protest.

All this is such over-the-top fear-mongering.

The truth of the matter is that an Uhuru-Ruto victory would be a game-changer across multiple sectors, not only in politics and diplomacy, but also at The Hague, where dreaded but trumped-up crimes-against-humanity cases await the two.

First of all, it would mean that the General Election would not witness pre-election violence in the usual hotspots for the first time in the multiparty era.

The coming together of two of the largest vote blocs – the Mt Kenya bloc and the Rift Valley bloc – engineered by Uhuru, Ruto and their handlers, is one of the rarest feats of Kenyan politics.

Sustainable peaceful co-existence between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin in the Rift Valley is indeed a great achievement.

This is genuine conflict resolution and peace building. This is the path of self-regulatory (as opposed to supervised) peace and it is viable and sustainable.

Kenya has not only registered the fastest post-conflict turnaround in recent history, complete with a coalition regime and the promulgation of the new Constitution, and the rolling out of multiple reforms, it is definitely not a failed state. And Uhuru and Ruto have been key to this post-conflict national recovery and repair.

When professional alarmists, both local and international, talk of Uhuru and Ruto ticket attracting sanctions and international isolation for Kenya, they hypocritically fail to mention the fact that nations such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Israel and Australia have no intention whatsoever to surrender any of their citizens, not even combatant soldiers of the lowest rank actually dripping with the blood of their victims, to the jurisdiction and tender loving care of the International Criminal Court.

Any sanctions based on such sheer double-faced and double-dealing hypocrisy would hurt ordinary Kenyans most, not the elite, who would still be free to visit the West and most welcome to keep siphoning Kenya’s hard-earned wealth into the banks there.

It is as clear as daylight that Uhuru and Ruto were made the scapegoats or the fall-guys of post-election violence in a deeply flawed mediation effort.

Any hypocritical sanctions that may be imposed to punish millions of ordinary Kenyans for choosing the path of peace and putting the past firmly behind them will be busted with great success, joy and aplomb, both in the region and abroad.

Let Kenyans decide.

The writer is the TNA Secretary General