Uhuru Kenyatta’s Victory

A round-up of Kenyan Election commentary:

In Time, Alex Perry on the recent elections in Kenya and Uhuru Kenyatta's victory:

If the result withstands Odinga’s challenge, a win for Kenyatta would represent the most stunning articulation to date of a renewed mood of self-assertion in Africa. Half a century ago, Africa echoed with the sound of anti-colonial liberation. Today, 10 years of dramatic and sustained economic growth and a growing political maturity coinciding with the economic meltdown in the West and political dysfunction in Washington and Europe, has granted Africa’s leaders the authority and means to once again challenge Western intervention on the continent, whether it comes in the form of foreign diplomatic pressure, foreign aid, foreign rights monitors or even foreign correspondents...[continue reading]

After the jump from CNN "President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya a man of complexities"

Dayo Olopade highlights the ICC conudrum represented by this victory:

It’s hard to drag an elephant into a room. But once there, it’s surprisingly easy to ignore. Such was the case during Kenya’s presidential campaign, which concluded this week. After a series of galling technical mishaps, the latest vote count delivered the presidency to deputy prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto. The elephant of course, is the fact that both are under indictment by the International Criminal Court, accused of inciting, organizing and funding ethnically motivated violence against political rivals—or as these actions are otherwise known, crimes against humanity...[continue reading]

In the New Yorker , Alexis Okeowo provides further context in 'Kenya Decides"

It was a strange sensation, watching Kenya elect suspected criminal Uhuru Kenyatta as its new President by a sliver of a margin from across the continent. Five years ago, after Kenya’s December, 2007 election, I was in the country reporting, with slight disbelief, on the mystifying violence that had taken place after a poorly run (and possibly rigged) election, and that had debilitated what was once the political and economic beacon of East Africa. I was also there for the long-awaited peace negotiations that gave some of us hope in Kenya’s new coalition government. After the coalition fell apart, though, and proved to be up to past regimes’ old tricks (bloated cabinet, extravagant parliament salaries, stolen government funds, land grabbing, and the rest), and clashes among ethnic groups over scarce resources in parts of the country began to flare, observers sounded the alarms...[more]

Update - In Reuters "Peace holds in heartlands of Kenya's election losers"

Strongholds of defeated presidential candidate Raila Odinga were peaceful on Sunday, apparently reflecting a desire by Kenyans to avoid a repeat of the bloodshed that followed the last election five years ago.

Odinga has refused to concede the election to rival Uhuru Kenyatta, but said he would challenge the result in the courts and urged his supporters to refrain from the violence that convulsed Kenya when he lost the disputed vote of 2007.

A smooth handover of power this time around is seen as critical to restoring Kenya's reputation as a stable democracy and safe investment destination - an image that was shattered by the mayhem that followed the last election...[more]