Kenya: Risk To Stability

Kenya was once a beacon of calm good governance in post empire Africa. But no longer. The rules of democracy are not being obeyed. These are that elections must be free fair and accepted as final; the government must govern for all; the losers must be willing to be governed by the winners who must govern fairly; the turnout must be sufficient to validate the mandate of the party or coalition which forms a government and everybody must accept the result and move forward.

None of these conditions are now being met in Kenya. The Opposition candidate refuses to take part in the presidential re-run, the Electoral Commission cannot guarantee that the election will be free and fair and the Supreme Court could not muster enough judges to hear a legal challenge. This is a very dangerous road for a democracy to wander down. It leads eventually to the status of a failed state. The world has more than enough of those already.