Kenya's About-Face: Fear for Democracy as Dissent Is Muzzled

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February 5, 2018 2:18 AM

The most widely watched television stations in Kenya are shuttered, and the government has defied a court order to return them to the air. Opposition politicians are under arrest, and journalists have also been threatened with jail. And the government has officially designated some of its opponents “an organized criminal group.”

“This is a new crisis for democracy,” said Willy Mutunga, a former chief justice of the Kenyan Supreme Court, who left the bench in 2016.

The events in Kenya over the past week are a stunning about-face in a country praised mere months ago as a shining example of democracy, when the Supreme Court overturned a presidential election, and the winner, President Uhuru Kenyatta, agreed to abide by the ruling. That case was hailed as a powerful display of judicial independence and a win for the rule of law.

But now many Kenyans fear their country is sliding away from democracy.

“Kenya hasn’t seen anything like this before — this is unheard-of,” said Ahmednasir Abdullahi, who represented Kenyatta before the Supreme Court last year in several election cases. “When there is a court order you don’t obey, you look like a rogue state.”

The U.S. government said in a statement last week that it was “deeply concerned” about the interference with the media, and the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the government to “respect and implement” the court order to end the blackout.

In Kenya, some are now likening Kenyatta to Daniel Arap Moi, the authoritarian president who ruled the country for 24 years, before finally leaving office in 2002.

But shutting down broadcast stations “never happened, even under Moi,” said George Kegoro, executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

The current tensions have their roots in last year’s presidential election, when Raila Odinga, Kenyatta’s longtime political rival, challenged his loss to the president. The Supreme Court ordered a new election, but Odinga withdrew before the second vote.

When Odinga’s supporters boycotted the polls, they handed Kenyatta an easy victory. Odinga refused to concede defeat and threatened to take a parallel “oath” as “the people’s president.”

The New York Times

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