Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Rabat – Kenya’s Orange Party (OPM) leader Raila Odinga has corrected reporting on his alleged opposition to Kenya’s recent Western Sahara moves, stating he was merely protesting the matter in which the news was relayed.
As Kenya cut its ties with the Polisario’s political entity on Wednesday, September 14, some media reports had alleged that the influential OPM party leader had opposed the move. These reports were remarkable, as Odinga has on several occasions voiced his admiration for Morocco’s development.
Misreported Critique
On Friday, September 16, Odinga took to Twitter to correct media reports on his opposition to Kenya’s foreign policy shift. “Reports circulating that I attacked Ruto’s decision to review Kenya’s policy on Polisario are erroneous,” the former presidential candidate wrote.
He added that he “never mentioned Polisario and I know the important and beneficial relations between Kenya and Morocco.”
Odinga clarified that he had instead criticized Kenya’s recently inaugurated President William Ruto for the manner in which he announced the major foreign policy move. “I questioned the trend of roadside declarations on weighty issues,” Odinga highlighted.
Odinga, who narrowly lost to Ruto in last week’s presidential election in Kenya, continues to have “serious concerns” about Ruto’s election, yet continued his long-standing support for economic cooperation with Morocco.
Kenya’s Shift
William Ruto, who was sworn in as Kenya’s president on Tuesday, has left little time unused to boost Kenya’s economy, which has been plagued by debt, unemployment and inflation. Ruto has promised a radical overhaul of the country’s economy, and is eyening expanded trade relations with Morocco as a logical source of new economic momentum.
Producing noticeable economic change in the near-term is a tough task for any politician, yet Ruto clearly sees closer relations with Morocco as a means of fixing short-term issues, especially in the country’s agricultural sector. The new president recognized that the presence of a Polisario diplomatic office stood in the way of closer ties, and on Wednesday announced on Twitter that his country would end the entity’s presence in Nairobi.
While Ruto and Odinga don’t see eye-to-eye on most political issues, both Kenyan political figures have been vocal about the need to forge closer ties with Morocco. While Odinga criticized Ruto’s use of Twitter as a means to announce such an important foreign policy move, he does not oppose the move itself.
President Ruto himself appears to have recognized that his tweet, which he had posted following a meeting with Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, was not the best approach to announcing Kenya’s shift on such a major policy issue.
He has since deleted the tweet and is likely to issue an official cabinet-backed statement about his intentions in the coming week, to avoid what the OPM has described as an “unconstitutional” unilateral move, as all foreign policy moves in Kenya need to be ratified by parliament.
