COALITION END-GAME?

It seems everyone is waiting for Kenya's coalition government to fall apart. But who is going to blink first when the risks are so high? Stagnation may, afterall, be preferable to a potentially very dangerous vacuum and elections that, most agree, whenever they come will be troublesome and very possibly marked by violence. However, standing still carries its own dangers and surely at some point the internal bickering within the coalition must become untenable. Not to mention the damage being done by the lack of leadership in a time of global economic crisis which is expected to really start hitting Kenya this year. Growth forecasts have now been revised down to 3 percent for the year to June -- down from 5.8 percent previously, and a sturdy 7 percent growth in 2007. There is a 25 billion shilling shortfall in the 08/09 budget, so belts must be tightened -- perhaps those inflated salaries in parliament? Tourism, remittances, exports -- all will be affected by the global recession. If ever leaders of stature, of vision and of courage were needed, it would seem to be now.
Instead, this week a meeting of the Permanent Committee on the Management of the Grand Coalition Affairs was cancelled because of a government row over the deaths of two human rights activists in Nairobi and a subsequent protest by students which turned ugly, among other political bickerings.
Many commentators seem to agree that the coalition is doomed...but what do Kenyans think? Is there hope that the Grand Coalition could make way for a better team, or simply a feeling that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't?
Prime Minister Raila Odinga seems to be taking the biggest political hit right now, with many questioning his decision to back the students' protest, not to mention increasingly strident voices being raised against him within his own party. And all the time, President Mwai Kibaki remains mostly silent, though he has blamed the media and civil society groups for fuelling discontent. As politicians bluster with an eye or two always on 2012, reports of intimidation and evidence of the ineluctable spread of a culture of fear continue to mount, as in this story about human rights activists fleeing the Mount Elgon area after police investigations into their contributions to U.N. special rapporteur Philip Alston's report on extrajudicial killings.