Kenyan opposition leader sworn in 'as people's president'
January 30, 2018
Kenya opposition leader Raila Odinga has sworn himself in as "president of the people." The government responded by declaring the opposition National Resistance Movement a criminal group.
Image: Reuters/B. Ratner
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Opposition leader Raila Odinga took an oath of office as what Kenya's opposition coalition has named the "president of the people." "I, Raila Omolo Odinga, do swear that I will protect the nation as people's president, so help me God," he said. His running mate, Kalonzo Musyoka, who was supposed to be sworn in as his deputy, did not appear at Odinga's side.
Thousands of opposition supporters had gathered in Nairobi's Uhuru Park on Tuesday for the staged inauguration. Authorities had initially warned the opposition to not gather in the park, but security forces remained at a distance and allowed the ceremony to go ahead. Following the ceremony, the government issued a notice declaring the opposition's National Resistance Movement illegal.
A number of television and radio networks that had planned to broadcast the opposition's ceremony reported that government authorities had forced them off the air, although many continued to stream live online. The attorney general has also warned Odinga that he could face treason charges forr the stunt.
The East African nation plunged into political crisis last year after the Supreme Court annulled an August election, won by Kenyatta, and called a fresh vote.
Odinga, 72, boycotted the rerun, alleging that the poll would not be free and fair. Ever since, he had vowed to hold his own swearing-in ceremony in protest. His National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition has also sought to undermine Kenyatta's legitimacy by setting up parallel government structures.
Ahead of the "inauguration," NASA announced in a statement that it planned to hold "a peaceful event, in total compliance with the constitution and the law."
How events unfolded in the Kenyan election
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has begun his second term in office. Here's how the tumultuous events developed since the election campaign in August.
Image: Reuters/B. Ratner
A tight race
Elections on August 8, 2017 were expected to be a neck- and-neck affair between incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta and his rival Raila Odinga.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Delay
Unrest ahead
A week ahead of the hotly contested vote, Christopher Musando, IT department chief of Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), was found dead. He was one of the few people with key information about the election management system. IEBC servers were supposedly breached in the 2013 polls.
Image: picture-alliance/AP
Marred by violence
The violence many Kenyans had feared and anticipated erupted just a few hours after the election results, handing victory to the incumbent, started to trickle in. Dozens of people were killed, mostly in the opposition strongholds. Refusing to accept the outcome of the poll, Raila Odinga turned to the Supreme Court.
Image: Reuters/G. Tomasevic
Anticipating results
The election was free and fair, international observers said, despite opposition allegations of rigging and hacked servers. Former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who headed a group of election observers from the Carter Center, also endorsed the vote.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/T. Karumba
Irregular, illegal
To no avail, however as on September 1, Kenya’s Supreme Court declared the vote neither "transparent nor verifiable" and nullified the August 8 presidential elections, in which the IEBC had declared President Uhuru Kenyatta the winner with more than 54 percent of vote. The court called for new elections within 60 days.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/B. curtis
Kenyatta - livid, stung
A disappointed Uhuru Kenyatta, who had already received hundreds of congratulatory messages, called the Supreme Court judges 'crooks.' The Chief Justice emerged an African hero for taking a firm decision to annul the results that were in favor of the incumbent president.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Kenya TV
In the interest of a 'credible' vote
Kenyatta's rival Raila Odinga pulled out of the re-run of the presidential election scheduled for late October. Odinga said he wanted to allow for the electoral commission to make fundamental reforms that would deliver a "credible election."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Bandic
Business boycott
The opposition boycott targeted giants in the telecommunications industry and companies that deal in dairy products, cooking fats and oils. Raila Odinga took the lead, publicly migrating from the Safaricom phone network, whose client he had been for the last ten years, to a new provider called airtel.
Image: Reuters/B. Ratner
Challenge dismissed
In November, Kenya’s Supreme Court upheld President Kenyatta's victory in the controversial October re-run, which he had won with 98 percent of the vote on a turnout of 39 percent. The court dismissed two petitions that argued the second poll had not been conducted according to law.
Image: Reuters/B. Ratner
Two titans
Kenya, where politics have been characterized by ethnic tensions since independence in 1963, is deeply split along an ethnic divide that has triggered a debate on splitting the country into two. It’s now up to the two political heavyweights, Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, (flanked above by the Archbishop of Canterbury) to bring the country back to normalcy.
Image: Reuters/B. Ratner
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Media targeted
On Tuesday morning, at least three broadcasters were taken off air for their planned coverage of the ceremony.
"This morning, officials from the communications authority accompanied by police officers went to a transmission station and disconnected our transmission. So we're currently off air on Citizen TV, Inooro TV and some of our radio stations," Citizen TV managing director Waruru Wachira told DW.
Earlier, the Kenya Editors Guild reported that authorities had summoned editors and warned their publications could be shut down if they covered the event.
Dozens of people were killed in clashes between Odinga supporters and police during last year's election turmoil, and some observers fear that Tuesday's ceremony could lead to a fresh outbreak of violence.
The nonprofit International Crisis Group warned in a statement that the action could "provoke protests, further police crackdowns and much avoidable destruction and bloodshed, while deepening already dangerous levels of polarization."
