We don't know what we don't know

Dialogue is always preferred to armed combat. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. But dialogue can only go so far if the parties to the dialogue come to the talks with nothing but bad faith. Where bad faith is assumed from the outset, dialogue is unlikely to lead to positive outcomes. In these circumstances, the need for a third party to lead confidence building measures is invaluable, otherwise the interlocutors will treat each other with suspicion or will renege on whatever deal they strike the moment the ink dries on the agreement.

There is a whole generation of Kenyans who have no idea what it took for the Inter-Parties Parliamentary Group to achieve the minor reforms it did in the run up to the 1997 general election. Those who remember the Koffi Annan mediated settlement in 2008 have either decided to keep mum or have developed severe cases of selective amnesia. In 1997, though heavy suspicion was in the air, keeping the package of reforms small and largely non-threatening kept the pot from boiling over. Don't get me wrong; there was still widespread violence before and during the elections, but it could have been much, much worse. In 2008, it took the Panel of Eminent African Personalities to ensure that passions did not remain high, that agreements would be honoured, and that violence would be tamped down on both sides. The 2008 National Accord will hold up in the annals of history.

2023 offers Kenya's perennial political combatants another chance to draw on its history to arrive at a political settlement that they can live with. Just as in 1997 and 2008, there are men and women who are heavily invested in stirring the pot and keeping things on a knife edge. They know, almost for certain, that if the talks proceed and are successful, their opportunities to use chaos for self-enrichment shall be yanked away. They need the president and the former prime minister to be at odds and ends for as long as possible so that they can reap where they didn't sow.

I have no idea what the president and former prime minister are thinking. Few people actually do. So maybe, looking at the success of the 2008 National Accord, and the negotiating framework that led to its signing and the success it enjoyed until the 2013 general election, which threw up new political challenges that have affected national politics since. Perhaps it is a negotiating tactic, on both sides, to enter the talks with hardline stances and they will soften their positions as things progress. If so, then maybe we need to give the protagonists time to set out their positions in full before we can judge the relative merits of each side's position.