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Kenya

Experts warn politicians to tone down rhetoric

“I think the government is casting around for enemies to blame because it is impotent to prevent the actual security threat and the consequences that are taking place,” Mike Jennings, a senior lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, told IWPR. “It is clearly seeking to deflect attention, to deflect blame rather than manage the crisis.”

HEIGHTENED TENSIONS

Odinga has been holding a series of political rallies designed to pressure the government on its handling of the security crisis. Prior to the latest attacks, the government had rejected Odinga’s request to hold a national dialogue on the issue.

The CORD leader has pledged that the rallies will carry on, culminating on July 7, unless such a consultation takes place.

According to a report in Kenya’s Star newspaper, some of Odinga’s backers have threatened to swear-in their leader as president if there is no national consultation on security.

However Odinga denied that he was seeking to overthrow the government, despite making a series of scathing statements about its handling of the security threat.

“We will continue with our rallies because what has just happened confirms the need for national dialogue,” Odinga said. “One of the issues we are addressing is security, and there is urgency to deal with this issue.”

Odinga described Kenyatta’s assessment of this week’s attacks as “unfortunate and unjustified” and said he had ignored both intelligence information and the views of other countries that pointed to al-Shabaab.

Analysts in Kenya say the political foes need to come together to tackle the crisis.

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“It is worrying that this security situation has become so quickly politicised,” Cedric Barnes, from the International Crisis Group, told IWPR. “Both sides need to reduce the rhetoric and talk to each other. But both sides are not doing that.

“What should happen is there should be a unified national response to this awful attack and an investigation should be instigated.”

Jennings, too, criticised Kenya’s leaders for increasing tensions on the ground.

“The only solution to that is for those same political elites to ramp down that language; to understand that they can’t do this,” he said. “And we saw this in the [2013] elections, so it is clearly possible. And what we also saw in the elections was a very strong desire by Kenyans themselves [to keep the peace].”

Others argue that Odinga should tread extremely carefully, using his role as opposition leader to challenge a much-criticised government response to the security problem, but without exploiting the situation for political gain.

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