In her capacity as one of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’s (Nepad) eminent persons, Graca Machel is visiting Kenya for the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). She is accompanied on the bruising two-week trip through the East African giant by her husband, Nelson Mandela.
Kenya is in the throes of a sometimes violent referendum campaign. The timing of her visit is certainly not ideal for Kenya. But if it does pass muster in this difficult period it will be an achievement for both the country and the APRM process.
Machel’s job is to decide whether the self-assessment by Kenya reflects the reality in the country.
”It will not be lost on observers that Dr Machel and her husband are visiting when claims of political -persecution and intolerance are at the forefront of the referendum debate,” the Daily Nation commented in Nairobi this week.
”Hopefully, this will not colour the views given to the [APRM] panel, whose members will listen to views from the civil society, NGOs, the public and private sector on the progress made on various fronts.
”Specifically, it will listen to opinions on Kenya’s official efforts to deal effectively with corruption, election rigging and human rights abuse. Kenya will be assessed in two key areas — development and governance.”
Shortly after arriving in Nairobi, Machel commended Kenya’s self-assessment report as candid.
The East African Standardquotes her as saying: ”The report recognises some of the good things achieved by the government. There is openness in it.”
In fact the report shows that 80% of interviewees feel powerless to change policies that touch their daily lives. Fully three-quarters believe MPs and councillors are feathering their own nests rather than tending to the needs of the people who put them in office.
The report states that ”Kenyans are dissatisfied with the performance of their elected representatives, widespread corruption in the police force and the justice system”.
Last month the chairperson of the APRM national governing council, Jepthah Gathaka, told a stakeholders’ forum that 94% of Kenyans felt corruption was growing instead of decreasing despite President Mwai Kibaki coming to office two years ago with a clean-hands policy.
Machel has arrived in a country where civil society has split with government and wants to present an alternative report to the APRM adjudicators. She urged the sector not to do this but rather to work with government in improving the country. ”We need to change the culture of expecting government to do things,” she said. ”We cannot have a government that works without trust from its people.”
Kenya is the third country to have reached the adjudication phase of the APRM process.
Five steps to a better democracy ‒ what the experts say
Institute for Democracy in South Africa senior researcher Jonathan Faull
Independent political analyst Protas Madlala
Professor Susan Booysen, Wits Graduate School of Public and Development Management
Professor Adam Habib, head of Human Sciences Research Council democracy and governance programme
— Marianne Merten
