Kenya’s frosty diplomatic relations with the West

British envoy Christian Turner    PHOTO: COURTESY

By MOSES NJAGIH

The relations between Kenya and her former colonial power, Britain, was arguably at its all-time low this year, resulting at times in embarrassing diplomatic spats. 

The Jubilee administration has several times strongly hit out at the United Kingdom Government, accusing it of meddling in Kenya’s internal affairs.

It all began prior to the General Election on March 4, when Presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta led the Jubilee campaign team in accusing Britain, the United States and other Western powers of having their preferred candidates, and working towards ensuring that their team did not clinch the presidency.

An incident at Bomas of Kenya during the controversial tallying of presidential votes heightened the already frosty relations.

With Uhuru leading the Cord candidate Raila Odinga in the vote tallying, an impasse arose over the issue of spoilt votes and whether they should be included in determining the outcome of the election.

Jubilee accused British High Commissioner Christian Turner of canvassing to have the spoilt votes, which were then claiming close to 10 per cent of the registered voters, in the tally.

Jubilee leaders wondered what interests Turner had in the matter that was purely under the responsibility of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). This, only served to further their claims of partisan interests on the part of British Government.

However, the British Government dismissed this position

Since then, the Jubilee Government has been hitting out at Britain over its handling of matters surrounding the pending ICC cases facing Uhuru and his Deputy William Ruto.

The Government was irked by the position that the UK Government took during the UN Security Council special session, where Kenya was lobbying for the deferral of the two cases against its leader.

Jubilee leaders accused Britain of betraying Kenya’s request for a deferral. This was after the UNSC permanent members decided to abstain from voting on the deferral request, thus defeating Kenya’s plea.

Calls on Kenya to sever links with Britain and even pull out of the Commonwealth – a congregation of nations that were former Britain colonies – gained momentum.

In what was perceived as a protest position, Uhuru snubbed the Commonwealth Summit in Colombo/Sri Lanka, reportedly the first time that a Kenyan Head of State had failed to attend such a summit since independence.

Only weeks after this happened, three senior officials from the British High Commission were embarrassingly ejected from a hotel in Eldoret by some members of the Uasin Gishu County Government.

The UK officials were meeting with members of civil society in a closed-door event, raising suspicion among President Uhuru and Ruto’s allies that the meeting could have a sinister motive, especially with accusations rife that members of the civil society were assisting in recruiting ICC witnesses.