Kenya, one of Africa’s leading economies and a bulwark of stability in East Africa is spiraling downwards into a major constitutional crisis that threatens the stability of the nation. A Supreme Court mandated presidential poll re-run, set by the country’s electoral commission for October 26 is unlikely to hold due a wide array of logistical, financial personnel, and political challenges. The country is spinning into a constitutional cul-de-sac, with many of its key political institutions unraveling. Without an election within the constitutionally mandated 60-day window, Kenya will enter unmarked treacherous constitutional political terrain.
Kenya, one of Africa’s leading economies and a bulwark of stability in East Africa is spiraling downwards into a major constitutional crisis that threatens the stability of the nation. A Supreme Court mandated presidential poll re-run, set by the country’s electoral commission for October 26 is unlikely to hold due a wide array of logistical, financial personnel, and political challenges. The country is spinning into a constitutional cul-de-sac, with many of its key political institutions unraveling. Without an election within the constitutionally mandated 60-day window, Kenya will enter unmarked treacherous constitutional political terrain.
With effectively ‘no-adults-in-charge’ Kenya, once the bastion of stability in East Africa, is hurtling towards an uncertain future that could trigger the first military coup in the country’s long history. Kenya’s professional apolitical military has increasingly become internally polarized along ethnic lines, in line with the country’s political decline. And if after October 26 the country descends into chaos, it would not be impossible to imagine the military being tempted to take over.
If however over the next 21 days, Kenya’s Supreme Court and Parliament, (still largely respected by a strong majority of the electorate), moves ahead of the crisis to signal a roadmap, in case the October 26 poll cannot hold, the country may very well pull back from the brink. However if the courts remain silent, and the parliament continues its gimmicks, many foreign investors in Kenya may yet have to re-classify the country in the lower, rather than upper tier of unstable frontier markets economies.
Kenya’s deep ethno-tribal fissures that pre-date independence in 1964 have widened in recent years exposing the brittle foundations of almost all Kenyan political institutions. In 2007/2008, in less than 60 days during a similar period, about 1,500 were killed, with nearly 600,000 internally displaced. Already since the August 8 poll, dozens have died. Many more Kenyans are likely to die if the present anarchic trends continue and Kenyatta stays in office beyond October 26 without either parliamentary sanction or gain the imprimatur of the Supreme Court.
DaMina Advisors is an Africa-focused independent frontier markets risk research, due diligence and Africa M&A transactions consulting and strategic advisory firm.
