Mingling of official, state and informal diplomacy in Uhuru’s South Africa visit

For his first foreign visit after assuming office for the second and final term, President Uhuru Kenyatta chose South Africa.

Coming in the second week of the New Year, the diplomatic sortie is one of the earliest-in-the-year if not the earliest that a Kenyan Head of State has ever made.

President Kenyatta’s ports of call were the coastal cities of Durban and East London, not the political capital, Pretoria.

The timing and location of the visit can be explained. Clearly, it was strategised to coincide with the 106th commemoration of the founding of the African National Congress (ANC).

Schooled in the art of symbolism, the ANC has since 1972 maintained a ritual where party anniversaries are marked by a host of highly publicised activities, the climax being the delivery of the so-called January 8 statement by the party leader – in this case the newly-elected ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa.

COMMEMORATIVE ACTIVITIES

“January 8” denotes the date in 1912 when the ANC was formed. The locale of this year’s commemorative activities was Kwa Zulu Natal and Eastern Cape provinces. Thus, Durban and East London, the commercial centres of Kwa Zulu Natal and Eastern Cape were deemed ideal for President Kenyatta’s visit, rather than Pretoria.

The pragmatism of Durban and East London aside, a diplomatic-political shift in Kenya-South Africa relations was afoot.

Being welcomed in Durban on January 11 by President Jacob Zuma lent the visit an aura of officialdom.

However, on moving to East London on January 12 for the main commemorative events, President Kenyatta and his entourage were the guests of the ANC hosted by ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa. From the ANC perspective, having an African head of state attending the anniversary would boost its Pan-African credentials.  

BESIEGED ZUMA

For many Kenyans, the fact of President Kenyatta being hosted by a state president and party president may be as clear as mud. The paradox of South Africa’s “two presidents” is one that the Kenyan delegation was wont to navigate cautiously given the current situation where the Ramaphosa faction in the ANC is pushing for the resignation of an increasingly besieged Zuma.

But all things remaining equal, it is valid to surmise that it is only a matter of time before Mr Ramaphosa consolidates power, a fact that Kenya’s ruling Jubilee Party strategists must have taken stock of.

It may be argued that President Kenyatta was reciprocating President Zuma’s state visit to Nairobi in October 2016. However, a closer interpretation of the visit indicates that it was more of a party-to-party engagement than a state-to-state one.

While Presidents Kenyatta and Zuma held court in Durban on matters economy and international relations, the preponderance of engagements lies in the rapprochement between the ANC and Jubilee parties. Indeed, it is President Kenyatta’s attendance of a gala dinner and the main fete at a stadium in East London that signalled the apex of the visit.

The location and timing suggest party-to-party diplomacy. Moreover, the Kenyan delegation, comprising Jubilee Party leaders – Vice Chairman David Murathe and Secretary General Raphael Tuju – serve as alibis for the party-based diplomacy.

ROLES MUTED

Although Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed and Principal Secretary Monica Juma were present, their roles were fairly muted. At any rate, it was quite tell-tale for President Zuma to indicate that another state visit for President Kenyatta is on the cards soon “to conclude strong agreements.” In other words, the political agenda trumped the economic agenda. 

In the visit, students of international relations have a classic case of the mingling of official, state and informal diplomacy. In diplomatic protocol, a state visit is vested with formalities such as playing of national anthems and inspection of guards of honour. There were no such formalities in the recent visit. On the other hand, it was an official visit to the extent that the President was invited formally by his host.

Another prism of looking at the mixed diplomacy during the visit is to put President Zuma’s Kenyan visit in 2016 side by side with President Kenyatta’s visit. While Mr Zuma was given a 21-gun salute, President Kenyatta was not. Interestingly, this was the first visit “official” to South Africa by President Kenyatta, his previous five sojourns having been of a multilateral nature. 

DIPLOMACY

The significance of the political-party-laden diplomacy evident in the visit brims with significance. For starters, ANC’s invitation of President Kenyatta serves to legitimise his re-election. It will be recalled that South Africa did not send top leaders to President Kenyatta’s swearing-in ceremony. The no-show by President Zuma or a leading South African official may have been seen as a setback.

A related consideration is the long-held perception that the ANC has had closer ties with Kenyan opposition over the years. Indeed, Nasa leader Raila Odinga publicly congratulated Mr Ramaphosa on his election in December in what analysts read as a demonstration of the proximity of the Kenyan opposition to the ruling ANC.

It can be speculated that as Mr Odinga was sending felicitations towards Mr Ramaphosa, back channels were being activated between Jubilee and ANC culminating in President Kenyatta’s visit. Noticeably, President Kenyatta and Mr Ramaphosa not only swapped mutually congratulatory statements but their body language spoke of an emerging camaraderie.

The long and short of it is that the Kenyan opposition comes across as having lost to Jubilee in the bidding war for the soul of Africa’s oldest party.

 Writer is a senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa [email protected]