Kenyan Coalition Stress: Potential Omen

The governing coalition in Kenya is facing new strains after President Mwai Kibaki approved a controversial media law last week. The measure establishes a new communications commission that will regulate broadcasting content and impose tougher jail sentences for press offenses. International observers and local activists had bitterly opposed the law, staging demonstrations and protests in December.

For Mr Kibaki, the measure is designed to balance the media's freedom with its responsibility to "account [for] the overriding interest and safety of Kenyans." Many within the country, however, fear that the communications law will return Kenya to authoritarian government. Indeed, Kenya's vast array of media outlets is now subject to office raids and electronic wiretapping.

Kenya's Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, has openly opposed the bill saying that the expanded federal powers would be "oppressive to the democratic gains achieved" in Kenya. Messrs Odinga and Kibaki fought a tense election battle last spring, in which political violence claimed some 1,500 lives and displaced 300,000 Kenyans. A UN-brokered agreement brought Mr Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and Mr Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) together into a power-sharing deal, but it has proved an uneasy alliance.

Not surprisingly, many analysts are concerned that a dispute over the communications law will send Kenya backsliding into political turmoil. Many officials with the ODM have complained that major decisions (such as diplomatic appointments) are being made without their consent. While the relationship between Messrs Odinga and Kibaki still appears cordial, mounting tensions will make it difficult for these leaders to hold their country together.

These are important times for Kenyan politics. Across the continent, Ghana has (for now) peacefully settled a December presidential election that produced razor-thin margins. The challenger, John Atta Mills, defeated the ruling-party candidate, a feat which Mr Odinga called a "rare example of democracy at work in Africa." Farther south, Africa is host to one of the world's most horrific heads of state, Robert Mugabe, who plans to unilaterally form his own government next month. Mr Mugabe appears to be doing everything in his power to drive a final stake through his earlier power-sharing agreements with Morgan Tsvangirai.

In recent weeks, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed resigned from his post as president of Somalia. While the flagrant anarchy in the Horn of Africa rendered this announcement largely ceremonial, Kenya should be concerned about the political forces in its northeastern neighbor. Should the coalition in Nairobi falter, there would be cascading fallout for democratic movements throughout the region. Even in South Africa, the recent democratic lodestar of the continent, there are populist tensions heading into 2009 election. Indeed, much depends on the ability of Messrs Odinga and Kibaki to manage Kenya's fragile coalition.

These are all significant challenges for Africa in 2009, and this review ignores the larger structural problems affecting Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Niger Delta. Certainly all of these political hot spots do not hinge on the Kenyan governing coalition, but leaders in Nairobi must make every effort to start the year off right.