Will President listen to his conscience or defer to legislators on ICC?

Nairobi; Kenya: The summoning of President Uhuru Kenyatta to appear before the International Criminal Court has elicited sharp reactions from legislators allied to the Jubilee-led government.

At a meeting led by the Leader of the Majority in Parliament, the leaders, while calling for their parliamentary group meeting this week, vowed that the President would not leave for The Hague on October 8 for the status conference.

Their reasoning is that as a sitting Head of State, it is demeaning to have the President appear before the court in person.

Secondly, the Jubilee leaders have never wavered in their conviction that the ICC was an imperialist ploy to embarrass the President, and by extension, Africans.

The fact that there are a lot of inconsistencies coming out of the ICC with witnesses recanting their earlier signed statements makes the anti-Hague group feel vindicated.

On the other hand, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is convinced she has a case against the President and accuses the Government of Kenya of stonewalling and withholding crucial evidence key to the case.

In retrospect, we should not lose sight of the fact that the case at the ICC is against Uhuru Kenyatta in his individual capacity, not as Head of State.

It was the circumstances surrounding the case, the denials therein and the President’s own willingness to prove his innocence that, during the campaigns for the Presidency in 2013, gave rise to such patriotic fervour and indignation amongst some Kenyans, that largely saw him clinch the Presidency.

In the formative days of the case, the President did not flinch from going to The Hague in person. While at the time his supporters had vowed the President would not go to The Hague, he defied them.

That was commendable. The candidate won the confidence and admiration of many. But then, Uhuru Kenyatta finds himself in a predicament where whether being Head of State is consistent with his publicly-stated stand to cooperate with the ICC and prove his innocence or give in to calls by his loyal troops not to honour the summons to appear before the court.

ICC is not an ordinary court where politicians interfere with proceedings.Tantrums thrown by local politicians will not intimidate the court, but could instead work against Mr Kenyatta.

While it is still early to determine whether failure by the President to honour summons will trigger the issuance of an arrest warrant, it remains a probability.

Thus, the President has the choice of ignoring his troops and going to The Hague in person or snubbing the court and risk the ignominy of an arrest warrant being issues that will limit his mobility and association with fellow world leaders.

Consequently, Kenya would be lumped together with Sudan and become a pariah state. It is the hope of this newspaper that President Uhuru Kenyatta will do what is right for the country and for himself.

At this point, the President is not guilty of any crimes. If he took the ICC head-on and won the cases as indications point could likely happen, it would be a major victory which could influence Kenya’s intended withdrawal from ICC.

In the meantime, the President would be better off listening to his conscience and disregarding the Jubilee brigade whose utterances and actions may jeopardise his case and for which calls on the President to defy the ICC offers them cheap political currency.