Possession is nine tenths of the law, according to the old saying, and so Mr Kibaki wasted no time in being sworn in as president of Uganda after being declared as the winner in last week’s hotly contested Kenyan election results. Mr Kibaki described the elections as “free and fair” and the results as “credible”, although many found Mr Kibaki’s last minute comeback in the vote count against his more highly favoured rival Mr Odinga to be “incredible”.
A team of observers from the European Union expressed doubts about the credibility of the tallying process, and the British Foreign Secretary indicated concerns about the reported irregularities. Mr Odinga, the presidential challenger, disputed the result and accused the members of the Electoral Commission of Kenya – appointed by Mr Kibaki’s incumbent government – of fraud. There has been violence on the streets, and many people have been killed.
One of the problems is that some Kenyans tend to ascribe a god-like status to their president. I remember the jubilation in the slums when Mr Kibaki was first voted in. This was going to fix all of the problems of corruption in government. Mr Kibaki appears to have been ineffective, and has fallen out of popular favour, and now Mr Odinga has been anointed as the new popular messiah. Regardless of what happens, it is simply not realistic to believe that a new president will instantly change everything for the better.