Category: Politics

{The Southern African Development Community (SADC) may not seem such an exclusive club to many of its own citizens. After all, a few of its members – Swaziland and Zimbabwe spring to mind – systematically violate the club’s ostensible rules, regarding respect for democracy, the rule of law and governance especially, without evident fear of expulsion.}

But the SADC club is nonetheless turning up its nose at two other countries that are trying to join.

Burundi and Comoros have both been banging on the door of the club for many months. But SADC, at least for now, is not opening it.

Last August, a SADC ministerial committee decided at a meeting in Maputo to send a SADC secretariat delegation to Burundi to assess its eligibility to join. The secretariat had already done a similar due diligence investigation of Comoros’s application.

In February this year, the ministerial committee met again to discuss the secretariat’s reports on both countries. It referred their applications for memberships to a special sub-committee of SADC foreign ministers, according to officials.

They made secret recommendations. South African President Jacob Zuma announced last week that the applications for membership from Burundi and Comoros would be discussed at the SADC summit in Swaziland last weekend.

But this didn’t happen. The applications were referred to a broader meeting of SADC ministers, probably to take place in June.

Official sources said the recommendation of the foreign ministers’ sub-committee was that neither country should be admitted as a member of SADC, at least not yet.

“You wouldn’t expect SADC to accept a candidate with issues like that,” one official said, about Burundi.

Another said the SADC consensus was that Burundi needed “to put its house in order” before being admitted. In effect, this demands that Burundi show good faith by engaging in political negotiations, led by the East African Community (EAC), with all genuine interlocutors – including the broad coalition of opposition parties, CNARED (The National Council for the Respect of the Arusha Agreement and Rules of Law), to resolve the country’s political and security crisis, which it has so far refused to do.

The application of Comoros appeared to have better prospects and some media reports last year suggested it would succeed.

But officials said this week that although Comoros “technically meets the criteria,” there was still no consensus among SADC members on its applications. Several countries were concerned at the country’s proclivity for political violence and coups (about 20 to date, successful and unsuccessful).

Those criteria for membership are mainly adherence to democracy, economic development, inclusivity, good governance and the rule of law, SADC’s 15 current member states are telling the two aspirant members (some with their fingers crossed behind their backs, presumably).

Why either Burundi or Comoros want to join SADC is not entirely clear, though it would not be entirely illogical for either to do so, at least geographically speaking.

Burundi’s neighbour, Tanzania, is a member of SADC and co-member of Burundi’s proximate international organisation, the EAC. Comoros lies in the Indian Ocean, between Seychelles, Madagascar and Mozambique – all SADC members – and already shares with the other three island states membership of the Indian Ocean Commission, their proximate international organisation.

Apart from the automatic increment of respectability that joining wider international organisations would normally bring to both countries, there is also a hint of “forum-shopping” in Burundi’s quest to joint SADC, regional commentary has suggested.

The political negotiations supervised by the EAC to end the Burundi political and security crisis have stalled, amid growing regional disenchantment with Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza’s intransigence. The crisis has widened the rift between him and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, whom he has accused of stoking the armed rebellion against him.

Does Nkurunziza perhaps hope, therefore, to tap into the anti-Rwanda sentiment that runs in SADC, and which has been engendered by the rivalry between Kigali and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a SADC member state?

Stephanie Wolters, Head of the Peace and Security Research Programme at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, points out that Angola, another SADC member, is one of Burundi’s closest behind-the-scenes allies.

She notes that Angola has already helped Burundi through the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) of which both are members. “Before Angola took over the ICGLR two years ago, it was seen as a vehicle for Rwandan and Uganda interests. But Angola’s leadership and its pairing of ICGLR-SADC summits has changed that for now.”

If Burundi is hoping to use SADC in the same way, that strategy does not seem to be succeeding, at least for now.

SADC itself appears to be following a different strategy for encouraging regional change, than its approach in the past. In 1997, it controversially admitted the DRC, just months after the fall of Mobutu Sese Seko and while the country was still embroiled in the conflict that was to suck in several nearby states.

SADC’s strategy then was ostensibly to bring a troubled neighbour into the fold and to collectively try to help it resolve its problems from within. Although, Wolters points out, the massive potential market offered by DRC, and its significant natural resources – including the Inga hydro-electric projects, “were not negligible elements in SADC’s consideration.

Is SADC’s apparently approach to Burundi different only because of its lack of resources?

A senior South African official denies any contradiction, noting that it was Pretoria that drove SADC’s acceptance of DRC – and that was because of South Africa’s special interest in stabilising the country.

Twenty years later, SADC has adopted instead – and apparently for the first time – what looks like a European Union-style strategy, setting conditions for membership which it hopes will incentivise aspirants to democratise and stabilise. This is what the EU did, successfully, with then-undemocratic countries such as Portugal, Spain and some Eastern European states after the fall of the Soviet Union.

But is this really what SADC is now doing with Burundi in particular? Or does it simply not want to be burdened with the responsibility and the potential damage to its reputation of bringing on board such a delinquent neighbour?

For whatever one might think of the wisdom of admitting DRC, it did commit SADC and especially South Africa, to try to rehabilitate the chronically turbulent country.

Though the file is far from closed – and indeed DRC was a major issue at the recent summit – South Africa and SADC claim some success, citing the relative stability of the country.

SADC would also point to the intervention of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola in 1998 to save the Laurent Kabila regime from a Rwanda-led military intervention; and also the Force Intervention Brigade, comprising troops from three SADC countries, and which is still fighting armed rebel groups in eastern DRC.

Another factor that might explain the different SADC approaches to DRC then and Burundi now is that in 2004, SADC leaders – probably as a result of the indigestion caused by admitting DRC – placed a moratorium on new membership, though not completely closing the door on new members in unusual circumstances. The aim was to consolidate the organisation. The exceptions were that after Seychelles pulled out, SADC admitted Madagascar to take its place, as it were, and then when Seychelles decided to return, SADC accepted it as a previous member.

If SADC is seriously considering admitting Burundi and Comoros, it seems rather fanciful to hope, though, that setting them democracy, stability and rule-of-law conditions for membership will really cure their chronic bad habits, as aspirant EU members changed theirs.

For one thing, there is a large credibility deficit in SADC’s strategy because of the yawning gap between SADC’s ostensible values and the actual practices of some of its members.

And the EU has a whole lot more than SADC to offer new members; such as free access to the world’s biggest market for their goods, services – and perhaps most importantly, workers – as well as generous development funds.

If SADC really hopes to get grudging democrats such as Burundi to plod in the direction of democracy and good governance, it needs to provide a better example and to tie a much bigger carrot to the end of the string. DM

Source:Daily Maverick

{Politicians with ongoing criminal cases, including those battling corruption and hate speech charges, now risk being locked out of the August General Election in an elaborate bid by vetting agencies to comply with Constitutional requirements on integrity.}

Those with suspicious degrees running for governor and president, as well as their running mates, will not be safe from the hammer.

{{Appeals }}

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, and the Registrar of Political Parties, and Attorney-General Githu Muigai say that they will not leave anything to chance in a bid to clean up Kenyan leadership.

“Information on ongoing criminal trials or investigations into criminal conduct of candidates in the elections may be obtained from relevant agencies, which may be significant to the ethics or integrity standing of candidates,” the team said in a joint communication in Thursday papers.

They, have however, said that such a candidate would not be disqualified if he or she “preferred an appeal or review against the sentence or decision; or all possibility of appeal or review has not been exhausted.”

{{Many boxes}}

On Wednesday, Attorney-General Githu Muigai remained optimistic that a 2013 court ruling that one cannot be stopped from running for having an ongoing case would not hurt their bid to enforce an ambitious law on integrity for elected officers in the August 8 poll.

“In the integrity test, there are many boxes to tick and criminality is just one of them. The other example is academic qualification. We have, regrettably have people carrying degrees they have not earned. Therefore, one of the basic question we will ask is: Do you hold the academic qualification you claim to hold?” said Prof Muigai.

At a joint press briefing at a Nairobi hotel, the agencies vowed that they would collaborate in the enforcement of Chapter Six ahead of the August polls.

{{Unsound mind }}

“The institutions will enforce compliance with the leadership and integrity requirements by aspirants in the forthcoming General Election,” they said in a joint statement read by Mr Wafula Chebukati, the IEBC chairman.

However, the “enforcement” still remains vague, especially considering that lawyers have argued that every Kenyan has an unflinching constitutional right- other than those convicted of election offences, academically unqualified (if required in the position sought) or of unsound mind- to contest for election as long as they are above 18 and are registered voters.

In their joint statement, the agencies still left the heavy lifting to the political parties who nominate candidates for seats, asking them to be the first filter in the clearance chain.

“We encourage political parties to nominate candidates who meet the leadership and integrity threshold set out in the law,” they said in a joint statement.

{{Watered down }}

But in a country where politics is a get-rich-quickly scheme, a provision to lock out corrupt individuals might still remain a pipe dream, much less enforced by political parties.

“I cannot stop anyone from running for office in my party. There are agencies that are supposed to clear people. They should do it,” President Kenyatta had thrown the ball to the agencies’ court in a live TV interview on Monday evening.

Chapter Six was what many have said was Kenya’s most ambitious section of the Constitution 2010, but which has been watered down so much and with a “vagueness” that has made it impossible to implement.

The subsequent Leadership and Integrity Act developed a self-declaration form for aspirants, which the EACC assesses before clearing a candidate.

{{6 months }}

They are asked to declare if they have ever been convicted of any offence and sentenced to serve for at least six months, misused public resources, removed from register of members of professional organisations, dismissed from employment due to integrity, or whether they had been subject of criminal or disciplinary proceedings as public officers.

{{Have a look:}}

THE EACC SELF-DECLARATION FORM: (Leadership and Integrity Act)

1. Have you ever engaged in the conduct of public affairs?

2. Have you ever misused public resources?

3. Have you ever abused a public office?

4. Have you ever misrepresented information to the public?

5. Have you ever engaged in wrongful conduct whilst in the furtherance of personal benefit?

6. Have you ever discriminated against anyone on any grounds other than as provided under the Constitution?

7. Have you ever falsified official or personal records?

8. Have you ever been debarred or removed from the register of members of your professional organisation?

9. Have you ever had any occupational or vocational license revoked and or otherwise subjected to any other disciplinary action for cause in Kenya or any other country?

10. Have you ever been dismissed from employment on account of lack of integrity?

11. If you have been a public officer, have you ever failed to declare your income, assets and liabilities under the Public Officer Ethics act, 2013?

12. Have you ever been convicted of any offence and sentenced to serve imprisonment for a period of at least six months?

13. Have you ever had any application for a certificate of clearance or good conduct or for a visa or other document authorising work in a public office denied and/or rejected for cause in Kenya or any other country?

Source:Daily Nation

{The United Nations said Tuesday that nearly three months after a political agreement was signed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, its implementation remains stalled, threatening security and stability.}

“As long as political dialogue remains in a stalemate, the tensions risk mounting,” Maman Sidikou, the head of the U.N. mission in DRC, MONUSCO, warned Security Council members.

A bleak report from the U.N. secretary-general chronicles spreading violence – including in previously stable areas, such as Tanganyika, where there has been inter-communal violence, and in Kasai and Lomami provinces, where militias have clashed with the army, killing more than 200 civilians. Mass graves also have been reported in Kasai. Last week, two U.N. experts and their four Congolese colleagues disappeared in the province and fears are growing for their safe return.

Human rights abuses also are alarmingly high – more than 5,000 violations last year — the majority at the hands of state agents, primarily the police. The U.N. reports continued activity of armed groups in the country’s east – including the resurgence of elements of the rebel group M23 – who were defeated in November 2013.

“The risk of electoral violence also remains high, mainly in urban areas,” Sidikou warned.

Meanwhile, displacements remain high, with more than 2.2 million Congolese forced from their homes.

In December, President Joseph Kabila remained in power after his constitutional mandate expired, sparking unrest and reigniting fears that the country of 67 million would slide backwards and return to violence and civil war. The country is still trying to work its way through the political crisis, towards elections later this year.

But there have been significant obstacles along the way. A deal signed between the government and opposition on December 31, 2016 has not been implemented, and in February, 84-year-old opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi died. There also have been disagreements between the two sides over designating a candidate for prime minister.

“The government has no intention of trying to delay implementation of the [December 31, 2016] agreement,” Congolese Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu told the council. He noted that the parties resumed negotiations on March 16 and that he is optimistic they will bridge their differences.

He said President Kabila is determined to continue the process toward organizing elections, and said close to 12 million voters have been registered of an anticipated 41 million throughout the country.

{{Largest UN Peacekeeping Mission}}

The peacekeeping mission in the DRC is the United Nations’ largest, with 20,000 troops and police, and its most costly, at more than $1.2 billion annually to operate. The Kabila government is eager to see the mission wind down and withdraw, while some Security Council members are looking to streamline its size and expense.

The mission’s mandate is up for renewal before the end of this month, and council members are debating what changes are necessary.

“There was some support for a reduction in numbers [of peacekeepers], but also some concern that this year in particular — with elections coming up by the end of the year — is not the moment to reduce in any way the ability of MONUSCO to provide protection of civilians,” Council President British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told reporters.

Due to the increasing threat of violence, the U.N. chief has asked for two additional police units for areas likely to be “electoral hotspots” – Lubumbashi and Kananga. He also has recommended the possible deployment of additional “specialized capabilities,” including intelligence assets and specialized ground troops. He said that would be accomplished by reducing other MONUSCO troops, not requiring an increase in the current force size.

Source:Voice of America