Al-Jadeed’s information indicated that the last meeting between Presidents Aoun and Mikati was violated by Gibran Bassil’s “proceeds”, which control the presidential cockpit.
In the details, Mikati proposed to Aoun to replace what he wanted from the names that he had marked with an x on the condition that the references represented by the ministers agreed.
The information pointed out that Bassil hit the positive effort to form, requiring 6 Christian ministers plus other ministers to complete the guarantor number of the blocking third.
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Presidential
The youth decided the outcome of the campaign – Mir – Kommersant
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
On Monday, the results of the presidential elections in Kenya were announced. The country’s vice-president William Ruto became the new head of state, who managed to win over the younger part of the audience with the help of populist slogans. True, it was not without scandal. Most of the members of the Central Election Commission of Kenya refused to put their signatures under the document, which summed up the results of the vote. But this did not prevent the authorities from approving them.
Chaos is tradition
The general elections in Kenya were held on 9 August. In addition to the president, 22 million registered voters elected 47 governors and the same number of senators, as well as 337 parliamentarians and 1,450 district legislators. Vice President William Ruto won the presidential race. He received 50.49%, his main rival Raila Odinga – 48.85%.
Weak voter registration rates and a relatively low turnout – regarding 65.4% versus 79.51% in 2017 – speak in themselves of Kenyans’ fatigue with “the same faces”, their intrigues and unfulfilled promises.
Kenya is considered one of the most stable and prosperous democracies in East Africa and the entire continent, with a competitive public policy and an emphatically independent judiciary.
But the pre-election period here is not complete without scandals – populist statements, mutual accusations of corruption among politicians, vote buying and general social tension. And the elections themselves are often characterized by chaos in the work of election commissions. The memory is still fresh in the country of how, in 2007-2008, allegations of falsification escalated into inter-ethnic clashes that claimed the lives of more than a thousand people. These events shook up the country and set off a series of reforms that culminated in the adoption in 2010 of a new constitution that emphasized decentralization and a revision of the powers of the executive branch. However, the electoral commission has remained a weak link in the work of state institutions, which once more manifested itself during the last elections.
In most constituencies, the comprehensive election management system responsible for registering voters failed, and people dispersed without waiting in line for their ballot.
As a result, in some districts, voting for governors, local authorities and deputies had to be postponed until the end of August. But the results of the presidential elections were still summed up. True, following the announcement of the voting results, four of the seven members of the election commission refused to sign the final documents, referring to the “non-transparency of the process.”
But at least so far everything has gone without serious inter-ethnic clashes, although there were still small riots on the streets of Kenyan cities following the announcement of the results. However, in these elections, economic problems came to the fore both in the programs of candidates and in the preferences of voters. Rising cost of living, fuel, bread, flour, corruption and unemployment, devastating drought drowned out historical grievances and mutual claims of ethnic groups.
Who’s Who in Kenya
Four candidates registered for the presidential election, but all analysts and sociological services predicted a fight between two veterans of the political scene – Raila Odinga and William Ruto and their coalitions Azimio la Umoja (Declaration of Unity, 29 parties) and Kenya Kwanza (Kenya First, 12 batches) respectively.
Raila Odinga, 77, was the successor to President Uhuru Kenyatta, who was finishing his second and final constitutional term. Mr. Odinga is the oldest presidential candidate in Kenya’s 31-year history of multi-party democracy. According to TIFA polls, he was in the lead in seven of the nine regions of the country. Former Prime Minister (2008-2013) Raila Oding with many years of experience, Luo by birth, comes from the oldest political dynasty. He is the son of Jaramoga Odinga Odinga, a prominent independence fighter and first vice-president of independent Kenya in the government of Jomo Kenyatta, by the way, the father of the outgoing president.
Despite the huge political capital, in the presidential elections, for which Raila Odinga ran for the fifth time, he was chronically unlucky. In particular, he led the polls in 2013 and 2017, but lost each time following the ballots were counted.
This time, including for the sake of winning a female audience, he took a 64-year-old “iron lady” as a couple – lawyer Martha Carua, who might become the first female vice president in history.
She comes from the country’s largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu, who hails from Mount Kenya, a key region with more than 5 million voters, and has a valuable reputation as a principled fighter once morest corruption. After her nomination, Raila Odinga became the leader in the polls, but this did not help him.
Raila Odinga’s opponent was the younger and more energetic Vice President of Kenya, 55-year-old William Ruto. He, too, paired up with Mount Kenyan-born Rigati Gachagua, a vocal critic of President Kenyatta, without seeing that his new ally is on trial for corruption.
As the second person in the state, William Ruto during the election campaign presented himself as a non-systemic candidate and a man of the people, emphasizing that he began his career as a street vendor. He accused his rival of abusing hereditary privileges and close ties to the establishment.
Raila Odinga really owns real estate and industrial companies, although he himself estimated his fortune undeservedly modestly – only $ 16.9 million. However, William Ruto is not so simple either. In Kenya, the threshold for entering big politics is unnecessarily expensive, so everything is decided by large fortunes and connections. Mr. Ruto is a prosperous businessman and landowner with assets in the hospitality, real estate, agro-industry, and at the same time an experienced politician with 30 years of experience.
Behind the struggle of William Ruto with the “dominance” of the Odinga and Kenyatta dynasties lies a long-term political saga, sustained in the best traditions of the country’s political culture, where situational alliances and betrayals are in the order of things.
Both William Ruto and Raila Odinga have changed partners many times in previous political campaigns. Eventually, in 2013, an alliance of Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto came to power, actively using viral propaganda on social media and getting the better of Raila Odinga. The alliance was sealed with an unspoken promise: following serving two terms, Uhuru Kenyatta would support William Ruto as his successor. In 2017, the couple successfully repeated the combination, once once more frustrating Raila Odinga’s plans. But already in 2018, relations between the president and the vice president deteriorated, and, despite some attempts to reconcile, the president made a bet on Raila Odinga, breaking his promise. But in the end, it still didn’t help.
Mr. Odinga came from a center-left position, promising that if he is elected, the unemployed and the poor will receive $50 monthly benefits, that the country will launch the Babacare (his nickname Baba, or “father”) universal health insurance program. However, analysts consider the decisive factor in his victory to be the support of young people who bought into the image of William Ruto as a non-systemic politician, which, in particular, helped him win part of the Mount Kenya electorate – the fortress of President Kenyatta. Mr. Ruto’s main promise is lending to those employed in the informal and street economy, those very “hustlers” who make up 83% of the workforce and the majority of more than 22 million voters. Now the question is how William Ruto will keep his promises and whether he will disappoint his electorate.
Alexey Tselunov
An-Nahar: Will the presidential candidates, Franjieh and Bassil, adhere to Nasrallah’s advice?
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
Sarkis Naoum wrote in “An-Nahar”:
The battle for the presidency of the Republic in Lebanon began before he entered the deadline set by the constitution to elect a new president, which is the last two months before the expiry of the incumbent’s term. Of course, this does not mean that it started recently, as it has been in his mind since President Michel Aoun took office in 2016 as well as in the minds of his Free Patriotic Movement and its president and son-in-law at the same time, Minister Gebran Bassil. This meant at the time, as it now means that Aoun planned to enter the presidential palace in Baabda to stay there. If health and advanced age did not help him, then his successor is known, and he is the son whom God Almighty did not give him, but he compensated him in his opinion with the husband of his youngest daughter, Representative Gibran Bassil. And he is any aid that built his plans on a solid fundamental reason, which is his firm alliance with “Hezbollah” that brought him to the presidency, although following two and a half years of a vacuum in which he was caused by the failure of his Christian rival, the head of the “Lebanese Forces Party” Samir Geagea, as he and his allies were unable to provide a quorum for a session The election as well as securing the victory of the first presidency. He also built it on another reason, which is his knowledge that the plan of this “party” differs from the plans of the parties in Lebanon for a long time. He is armed to the bone and enjoys the support of his “people” or his Shiite environment, as he calls it, and believes in a religious-political doctrine that transcends Lebanon, but following controlling it or capturing it by a democratic but “reinforced” means with an army of more than one hundred thousand fighters, according to its Secretary-General, and it fought harsh and fierce battles. Against Israel in Lebanon and for the benefit of its ally Iran in the region, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as the issue of Palestine, which has long become the Arab national cover for any party that believes in the Palestine cause and uses it at the same time to achieve its local goals and the regional goals of its sponsor and ally, but rather its Islamic institution, Iran. This means that his political-security-military role in Lebanon at least, even though he exceeded it to its surroundings, which Al-Assad established for a long time in cooperation with Islamic Iran will continue and will escalate and his strength will increase. General Aoun, the most prominent of whom is now MP Bassil. About two weeks ago, the founder expressed his confidence in continuing in power and exercising his presidential policy in Baabda Palace while receiving a delegation from the Lebanese Accountants Syndicate.
Will Aoun succeed in translating his political and presidential wishes into reality before or even following his term ends? The available indicators do not suggest its success for several reasons, the most important of which are three. The first is the failure of its ally, “Hezbollah”, which brought it to the presidency with a majority in the recent parliamentary elections. This will prompt him to search for a president who is not hostile to him and is not an ally of his enemies internally and externally, and these are present. However, this does not mean that his situation is similar to that of his enemies. He succeeded in securing a worrying majority, ie 65 deputies who kept Nabih Berri as Speaker of Parliament, and they brought Balyas Bou Saab as his deputy. This is something that can be repeated, although it probably takes a long time, because its enemies constitute an absolute majority, ranging between 65 and 67 deputies. But that would be useless, as these people are sharply divided and no one seems to be able to bring them together, at least until now, and because the most prominent Druze leader Walid Jumblatt made one of his eight deputies an egg when he restored the heat to the wire of communication with “Hezbollah”, and when he confirmed His failure to align himself with the splintered March 14 group despite his sending a message to the Maronite Patriarch Al-Rahi stating that he is still committed to the reconciliation of the mountain, and to the delivery of a Lebanese president who is able to connect, communicate and dialogue with all parties, such as the late President Elias Sarkis.
In addition, the accurate information possessed by close Lebanese followers of “Hezbollah” and its ally, Islamic Iran, say that he has not yet chosen a candidate for the first presidency, and he will not promise former MP Suleiman Franjieh to support his arrival at Baabda Palace. He did not say to Basil: “You do not have the presidency for this session.” Rather, he invited the two of them to a meeting with his Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for the first time a few months ago, and told them: “They agreed with each other.” He said to each of them, most likely: “Go, Gibran, to Suleiman and reach an understanding with him.” He told Solomon the same thing. Basil’s answer was: “I do not go regarding the chief…”. Franjieh and the “party” were later told: “He met Bassil and reached an understanding with him.” He said: “I will do that following he commits himself to supporting my election as President of the Republic.” This means that Hezbollah has not committed to any of its allies, at least so far. However, Bassil and Frangieh’s commitment not to exchange public media and political attacks, perhaps it is likely that each of them will remain calm, knowing that neither of them can take over the presidency without the support of the “party”. But is Syria’s support for Bashar al-Assad necessary for that as well?
Raila Odinga announces that he will not take part in the presidential debate
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
Raila Odinga, one of the two main presidential candidates in Kenya, will not participate in the electoral debate scheduled for Tuesday, his campaign team announced on Sunday, accusing his rival William Ruto of wanting to evade certain themes, such as corruption.
William Ruto “demanded that the debate not focus on corruption, integrity, ethics and governance, key existential issues facing Kenya,” the campaign spokesperson wrote in a statement. by Raila Odinga, a historic figure in Kenyan politics.
“Any debate without these questions would be an insult to the intelligence of Kenyans. That is why we have no intention of sharing a national podium with someone who lacks basic decency,” he said. .
Mr Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua will instead hold a televised public meeting in the eastern wards of the capital Nairobi, “with ordinary Kenyans to offer (their) solutions to the challenges facing the country and ordinary people”.
This announcement follows a letter sent Thursday by the campaign manager of Wiliam Ruto to the organizers of the big debate on July 26.
Mr. Ruto “is ready to answer any questions and to talk regarding any subject that will arise during the debate”, he wrote, while conditioning his presence.
“We expect moderators to allocate equal time to the various topics that affect Kenyans and to give applicants a fair opportunity to respond to them,” he explained.
“For this, we wish to know in advance the number of minutes that will be allocated to the respective interventions on the topics including, but not limited to, governance and integrity, agriculture, health, SMEs and industry, housing, the digital economy, foreign policy, etc.”
In a press release on Sunday evening, the organizers confirmed that the debate would be held on Tuesday.
“We continue to mobilize all stakeholders. (…) We are committed to making the debates as inclusive and representative as possible, for the benefit of the Kenyan people”, they write.
“As per the Presidential Debate Guidelines, we have shared the topic areas with all candidates and the moderators will endeavor to cover all said topics within the allotted time. (…) The moderators will select the questions to be asked and will only share them NOT with candidates. They will NOT meet with campaign teams or candidates,” they add.
If four candidates are in the running, the presidential election on August 9 promises to be a duel between the historical opponent of Kenyan politics Raila Odinga and the outgoing vice-president William Ruto.
Outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta, who cannot run for a third term, announced in March that he would support his former rival Odinga, formalizing his break with his vice-president William Ruto.
Raila Odinga, 77, has made the fight once morest corruption one of his main campaign themes in the face of a competitor with a sulphurous reputation, who is notably the subject of corruption charges in an ongoing case since the year last.
William Ruto, 55, arises, representing the “resourceful” of the little people once morest the alliance of political dynasties embodied by MM. Kenyatta and Odinga, whose fathers were respectively the first president and vice-president of independent Kenya.