ELDORET – Azimio leader Raila Odinga has slammed US envoy to Kenya Meg Whitman over her remarks over the August 2022 election, terming her as a rogue ambassador.
Speaking after making his keynote address at the eight devolution conference in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu county, Raila said Whitman should keep off Kenyan affairs. lest they call for her recalling back to Washington DC.
“Tell the rogue ambassador Kenya is not the United States. Kenya is not a colony of the United States. Keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, we will call for your recall back to your country,” Raila said.
The opposition leader was reacting to remarks the US envoy made in her address to the conference on Wednesday, when she spoke highly of Kenya’s democratic standing on the continent, adding that Kenya held the fairest election in her history last year.
“I arrived in Kenya days before the general election, and what I witnessed was short of remarkable,” she said.
The envoy noted that the polls were observed by local and international observers and upheld by the Supreme Court, and power transferred orderly and peacefully.
The election, she said, had been termed by many commentators and analysts as the “freest, fairest and most credible election in Kenyan history”.
But what was seen as setting the stage for Raila’s response, Azimio senators led by Enoch Wambua (Kitui), Moses Kajwang'(Homa Bay) and Oburu Odinga (Nominated, ODM) on Thursday termed Ambassador Whitman’s remarks as insensitive.
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Addressing the media before Raila made his address, the senators said they believe Kenya’s electoral system is fundamentally flawed, and that they believe Kenyans are being taxed to poverty and death.
” As long as Kenyans are talking, we expect our foreign friends, and especially the United States of America, to be sensitive, mature, and to avoid making comments that are likely to erode the little trust that we are trying to build for the sake of our motherland,” Senator Wambua said in the press address.
Senator Oburu, who is also the elder brother to Raila, said he felt pained by the remarks made by Ambassador Whitman.
He said he found it too insensitive for the US Ambassador to talk about democracy in Kenya when the Ruto administration has criminalised legitimate rights of Kenyans: To demonstrate, to picket and to assemble.
“This is a right enshrined in the Constitution and it is even borrowed from the American Constitution. I really felt hurt when the US Ambassador is dancing and praising democracy in Kenya when such rights are being criminalised and described as destruction of property and riots, which shows the current regime is slowly this country into a dictatorship” Oburu said.
On his part, Senator Kajwang’ said the envoy’s remarks were prejudicial to the ongoing the national dialogue discussions.
“The national dialogue discussions are premised on the three things that she [Whitman] spoke about in a very insensitive manner. One was on electoral justice, two was on the burden that has been visited on Kenyans by the Finance Act 2023 and corruption, which is an existential threat to the well being and future of this country,” Kajwang’ said, adding that they would not want foreign partners to get involved in such domestic conversations.
But reacting to Raila’s remarks, a section of governors and senators affiliated to the Kenya Kwanza government said the opposition leader ought not to have used the words he used against Amb Whitman.
” It is quite unfortunate to hear a man at such level talk about an ambassador [in such a manner] and tell her to shut up. Perhaps it is time to tell Mr Odinga to shut up because had he heard what she presented, he would have seen that she was the best ambassador not for the US to Kenya but like a Kenyan ambassador,” Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika said.
Kihika said they expect Raila to respect others given his stature. saying he should put the country above his interests.
The term ‘Rogue Ambassador’ is drawn from a memoir by former US Ambassador to Kenya Smith Hempstone (1989–93) a period in which Kenyans were agitating for multiparty democracy.
Ambassador Hempstone, who died on November 19, 2006 aged 77, was among the critics of then President Daniel Moi”s dictatorship, and a vocal proponent of democracy and advocate for free elections in Kenya. This earned him the title Rogue Ambassador, which he went on to name his book: Rogue Ambassador: An African Memoir.
Azimio senators tell off US ambassador over ‘insensitive’ 2022 election remarks
