The west can do it again for Kenya

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta at the State House in Nairobi, Kenya.

Kenya: I vividly remember the late 1980's and early 90's when a dictatorial KANU regime would not heed the calls of the majority of Kenyans to embrace pluralism. It took none other than a retinue of foreign diplomats led by the then US Ambassador to Kenya Smith Hempstone to prevail on the West to put pressure on then President Daniel Arap Moi to embrace Multi- Party Democracy in the Country. The same West put pressure on Mwai Kibaki to embrace dialogue in the wake of the 2008 post-election violence after a hotly contested and stolen Presidential Poll. This again gave birth to the 2008-2013 Grand Coalition Government.

Today, as was the case then, the opposition has exposed Jubilee’s incompetence and failures and expressed its position on the issues of 1) insecurity, 2) electoral reforms, 3)corruption, 4) rule of law and 5)international relations, among other pertinent issues which require urgent attention. The opposition is calling for a Referendum to enable Kenyans take a position on these issues yet a complacent Jubilee regime appears unbothered and is instead putting in place a war-chest for the 2017 elections, judging from recent appointments in the Public Service.