30, January 2017 (Nyamilepedia) — Kenya has lost its bid to head African Union top body known as the African Union Commission, which is responsible for implementing all policies of the African Union.
Kenya was represented by it’s foreign minister Amina Mohammed, but she failed to gunner enough votes to take hold of the African Union top seat.
Meanwhile Chad’s foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat managed to get the majority vote of the African Union countries at the African union summit in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.
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African observers say Kenya has been hurt by recent concerns about it’s human rights record and also high levels of corruption with the country being named as East Africa fourth most corrupt.
Meanwhile regionally Kenya is seen to have lost influence and also failed to play a leading role in term of peace and security in the East African region with Ethiopia seen as the most active in that area.
“The issue of peace and security is paramount, …..Kenya is losing its central and neutral role as the centre for promoting democracy and good governance in the East Africa region” a South African political analyst told Nyamilepedia
Another western diplomat who didn’t want to be named who attended the summit said there was also concern amongst African countries about President Uhuru Kenyatta’s record on corruption, with many countries worried corruption could jeopardise African Union’s key interests and policies and lead to a disaster on the continent, so as a result many countries decided it was better to go with Chad which was considered a “lesser evil” compared to Kenyan current government which could not be trusted.
“It’s better to go for a lesser evil than a bigger evil, that was the route the African countries decided to take on this AU election, they decided Chad was a lesser evil than Kenya under Uhuru Kenyatta” said the European diplomat who attended the summit id Ethiopia.
There has been concerns recently about Kenya’s commitment to respect international human rights laws and Geneva conventions which the country is party to, this comes after the government arrested several human rights activists mostly from countries including South Sudan.
Kenyan government secretly deported the rights activists back to South Sudan against all advise not to deport the activists for fear they could be tortured or even killed, but the Kenyan government ignored the warnings from Human rights organisations and even from countries in the region and beyond to stop harassing and arrest rights activists and African refugees.
Meanwhile opposition groups inside Kenya accuse President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government of intimidating opposition political leaders and their supporters on the run up to elections in August, they say the government has been development dictatorial tendencies of lately which includes detaining opponents without charges, blocking media and press and harassing journalists.
Uhuru Kenyatta who is believed to have dropped in popularity has been accused of using state security to intimidate opposition and manipulate election results while trying to use state security agencies in his favour.
Kenya opposition groups also accuse Kenyatta of re-arming and deploying large number of security forces in opposition strong holds in order to use force to stay in power incase he loses the presidential elections.
Kenyan government has recently thrown its full backing behind the government of President Salva Kiir of South Sudan which is considered one of the worst dictatorial regimes in Africa, having one of the worst human rights record on the planet.
A chadian official told Nyamilepedia his country was the right one to hold the seat at this current critical moment in Africa due to the challenges the continent was facing in terms of peace and security.
“We are happy, we appreciates the African continent for the confidence they show and gave us that seat, we will do all we can to see peace and development in Africa,….. we do not want to be like a country which take sides in conflicts or encourage corruption and bad leadership on this continent, ……. we want peace for Africa” said the Chadian official who gave his name as Idris Mamaduo.
African observers we spoke to said they would have wanted to see Kenya’s Amina win the AU Commission seat as a sign of diversity and giving a female candidate another chance even though the current out going head of the AU Commission is also a female Mrs Zuma from South Africa.
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1 comment
The government intention towards AUC leadership was to get RID of ICC hangovers, but God intervened right on time. The only refuge even during these dictatorial moments.