French Embassy cancels meeting with civil society

Senator Mosses Wetang'ula and his Kakamega counterpart Boni Khalwale during burial service of the late Gaeb Khalwale, the elder brother to Bonny Khalwale, on May 26th, 2016 at Malinya village in Ikolomani Kakamega County. Wetang'ula said the current IEBC as constituted cannot hold transparent elections as Khalwale blamed the government for his recent arrest during anti-IEBC demonstrations last monday in Kakamega. [Photo:CHRISPEN SECHERE/Standard].

The French government was yesterday caught up in Kenya's local politics after it threw out the civil society from its premises.

Reason? The ruling Jubilee coalition was not represented in the meeting to explore options about the future of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

All the former presidential candidates had been invited including Raila Odinga as one of the panellists.

The embassy sought to know who was representing the Government side but were informed that top Jubilee officials including Deputy President William Ruto had declined invitations.

According to the Director of the Alliance Francaise Herve Braneyre, the absence of a "plurality" of Kenya's political opinion in the panel was enough reason for the meeting not to continue.

"The French Embassy said if there were some political leaders to take part in an event, the political plurality of Kenya had to be represented. We could not have one political opinion. We needed to have people from Jubilee and CORD. It seems that it was not possible for the organisers to get people from all the different groups and for that reason, the meeting was cancelled," said Braneyre.

Former candidates James ole Kiyiapi, Paul Muite, Martha Karua, Raila Odinga, Peter Kenneth, Musalia Mudavadi had been invited.

All but Mr Kenneth confirmed attendance. Deputy President William Ruto told the civil society that he was not going to attend.

"The Alliance Francaise is in a very sensitive place (right next to the Anniversary Towers in Nairobi, the headquarters of the IEBC), and there has been violence just in front of it... it is one of the reasons that the embassy considered," the director said.

The officials said there was a "potential risk" that some of the people who might accompany Raila would storm the IEBC offices after the meeting.

"It was a possibility that the French Embassy considered, that there might be a lot of people coming...," he added.

The IEBC too was invited, but said it had a pre-scheduled meeting of the full commission with the religious leaders.

"The Francaise is a not-for-profit association, we are non-political, and we are non-religious. We operate in premises that belong to the French Embassy. Any time we have an event, we inform the French Embassy, there is an evaluation about the feasibility of the event about security matters, and then we get instructions on whether to organise the event," Braneyre said.

Mr Muite said he learnt of the meeting's cancellation on Wednesday evening.