On September 7, 2016, when the Jubilee Party was formed at State House as a “roll up” of parties forming the Jubilee coalition from the 2013 election, officials of the Chinese Communist Party were in honored attendance.
This followed the announcement the previous month, a year ahead of the 2017 vote, of a new Party-to-Party “working relationship”.
“Uhuru Party to work with Chinese Communist Party” The Standard, 21 Aug 2016:
Jubilee Party Steering Committee co-chairman Kiraitu Murungi announced that the two political outfits will work together for the benefit of its members and citizens of both countries.
. . . We are happy that we are going to sign a new chapter of political co-operation,” said the Meru Senator [Kiraitu Murungi] on Friday.
Kiraitu was accompanied by his co-chair Noah Wekesa and other members of the steering committee. He said the two parties share almost similar ideologies, pointing out that they are concerned with uniting people of their respective countries.
See this take from “This is Africa“: “The unexpected virtues of flirting with dictatorship: Why Kenya’s ruling coalition is getting cosy with China’s Communist Party“.
“The Position Uhuru Will Hold After 2022” Kenyans.co.ke 20 Jan 2018:
Speaking in Gatanga on Friday, [David] Murathe explained that President Kenyatta ‘would play a supervisory role’ as the party expected to form the next administration after the 2022 General Election.
“President Uhuru will still be the leader of our party even after his term ends,” Murathe declared.
He further revealed that a team from the Communist Party of China would be brought in to offer Jubilee support and information on how to strengthen it’s structures.
“Jubilee to be given 20 scholarships by the Communist Party of China” Kenyans.co.ke, 25 Jan 2018:
He [Wang Xiaohui, CPC Deputy Director of Policy and Research] stated that CPC would offer the scholarships annually for Jubilee Party to take its members to China to learn skills on grassroots mobilization, democracy, and party management.
Mr Wang added that the two political parties agreed to establish collaboration mechanisms.
“We are ready to deepen collaboration mechanisms with the Jubilee party just as we have done with the African National Congress of South Africa and the Chama cha Mapinduzi of Tanzania,” he affirmed.
And see my January 26, 2018 post, “Candy and Communists for Kenya: as Kenyatta’s Jubilee ‘deepens’ partnership with Communist Party of Kenya, Mars Wrigley East Africa to sell ‘affordable Skittles’“:
And yes that event at State House celebrating the deeping partnership of Jubilee and the Communist Party of China yesterday has turned heads. I think a lot of Americans had not been aware of this relationship. Obviously it makes sense in carrying forward the spirit of KANU of Kenyatta and Moi and their understudies. Kenya always labeled itself a “democracy” whether one party rule was formal or informal. China, of course, is also “democratic” with numerous parties other than the Communist Party.
At a micro level I would take umbrage at the blatant use of State resources for Jubilee Party business, but since the Party was launched at State House in the first place and the donors supporting “Western-style” democracy and the “rule of law” and such were not willing to say “boo”–nor the IEBC nor the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties–there is never a reason to be surprised at this point. We reap as we sow.
ICYMI: An important read from Tristan McConnell in The Atlantic: A Deadly Election Season in Kenya – The Killings Suggest a State that is More Predator than Protector.
On January 25, 2018, Professor Peter Kagwanja, by reputation a fierce ideologue of the ruling party, gave and then published interesting speech through the think tank he heads. (Kagwanja is married to Dr. Monica Juma, Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs at that time, and promoted to Cabinet Secretary just afterwards [and now C.S. for Defense].) Kagwanja is known for things like providing arguments justifying the 2017 pre-election deployment of the Kenya Defense Forces within Kenya itself without Parliamentary clearance as stipulated in the 2010 Constitution):
The Africa dream captured by the Africa Union (AU) agenda 2063 meets the Chinese dream in the Belt and Road Initiative, the main foreign policy of President Xi Jinping.Here in Kenya, the impact of Belt and Road Initiative is seen in the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project, developed to link the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, from the port of Mombasa to Africa Atlantic sea board.It also resonates with the four pillars President Kenyatta has identified as part of his legacy which is food security, affordable housing, manufacturing and inexpensive healthcare.
The key lesson learnt in the 19th [CPC] congress, is the role of political stability in underpinning sustainable and long term development. Governments, come and go, but political parties should remain. The tragedy in Africa is that its political parties have a high mortality rate, making the Continent extremely unstable. Parties like the Communist PartyofChina(97Years),AfricaNationalCongress (ANC) of South A frica (106 years), Republican Party and Democratic Party (United States) respectively (164 years and 190 years) are the exception rather than the norm.
In Conclusion,
Africa needs strong parties, it needs to borrow a leaf from the Communist Party of China whose “democratic centralism”, has underpinned the world fastest economic growth in centuries.