The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP & THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda’s President and chairman of the East African Community (EAC) Yoweri Museveni is one of the first leaders to jet into Nairobi for the swearing in of Uhuru Kenyatta.
Museveni arrived in Nairobi on Monday evening and will be accompanied at the Kenyatta swearing in by Uganda Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa.
Museveni also attended the Kenyatta’s first swearing in in 2013, an event at which he slammed the International Criminal Court (ICC) that was hovering over the polls. Kenyatta was later to appear before the ICC over charges that were later dropped.
“I want to salute the Kenyan voters on one other issue – the rejection of the blackmail by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and those who seek to abuse this institution for their own agenda,” he said at the swearing in ceremony in 2013.
“I was one of those that supported the ICC because I abhor impunity. However, the usual opinionated and arrogant actors using their careless analysis have distorted the purpose of that institution.They are now using it to install leaders of their choice in Africa and eliminate the ones they do not like.
He said a legalistic process would not solve the Kenyan political and social contradictions.
“What happened here in 2007 was regrettable and must be condemned, ” he said, adding “A legalistic process, especially an external one, however, cannot address those events.”
“Events of this nature first and most importantly, need an ideological solution by discerning why they happened. Why did inter community violence occur? Was it for genuine or false reasons? Even if you assume they were genuine reasons as a hypothetical argument, why should villagers attack one another?”
Kenyatta will be sworn in for a second term as Kenya’s president on Tuesday, the final act of an electoral saga that exposed deep and lasting divisions in the country.
His inauguration comes ahead after Kenya’s Supreme Court last Monday validated his poll victory, although the country’s political crisis is not over.
Protests sparked by the court decision left two dead, the latest casualties in a four-month period of unrest in which 56 people have died, according to an AFP tally. Most victims were killed at the hands of police, rights groups say.
The election chaos goes back to an August 8 poll that was annulled in September by Chief Justice David Maraga over “irregularities and illegalities” — a decision hailed across the globe as an opportunity to boost Kenyan democracy.
The most recent violence erupted after Maraga’s Supreme Court dismissed two petitions seeking to overturn 56-year-old Kenyatta’s victory in the election re-run on October 26.
Kenyatta’s rival Raila Odinga boycotted the vote saying the electoral commission had not made fundamental reforms to make the contest fair. Kenyatta went on to receive 98 percent of the vote — but on turnout of only 39 percent.
The decision to validate the October result now leaves the country deeply split — even if violence has not reached the scale of that which followed a 2007 poll when 1,100 were killed.
