The International Criminal Court indictments against the two leading presidential candidates, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, constituted an unprecedented dimension of the 2013 Kenyan election, earning the contest the designation "the ICC election" among observers and commentators. The fact that both the likely winner and the ICC-indicted vice-presidential candidate could mobilize sufficient electoral support to secure national office, despite facing charges of crimes against humanity, represented a significant challenge to international justice architecture and raised fundamental questions about the relationship between justice, politics, and electoral competition in post-conflict settings.
Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto had both been indicted in 2011 by the International Criminal Court for their alleged roles in organizing post-2007 election violence, wherein ethnic militia groups mobilized by political leaders perpetrated mass killings, displacement, and sexual violence. The indictments alleged that Kenyatta and Ruto, though not directly participating in violence, had financed, organized, and directed the militia groups that executed the violence. The ICC indictments were structured to charge "crimes against humanity," including murder, persecution, forcible transfer of population, and rape, based on theories of command responsibility and joint criminal enterprise. The charges thus implicated the two politicians in some of Kenya's darkest post-independence moments, raising the question of whether voters would accept indicted perpetrators as national leaders.
The Jubilee Coalition's response to the ICC charges was multi-layered. The coalition framed the indictments as politically motivated interventions by Western powers, arguing that the ICC was selectively pursuing African leaders while ignoring European or American conflicts. This sovereignty-focused messaging resonated with nationalist sentiment and implied that supporting Uhuru and Ruto constituted resistance to external pressure and defense of Kenyan autonomy. The coalition also deployed legal arguments suggesting that the ICC charges were tenuous, that evidence presented to the court was unreliable, and that Kenyatta and Ruto would ultimately be exonerated. This legalistic framing, while not technically inaccurate (the case against Kenyatta would eventually be dropped in 2014), provided political cover for supporters uncomfortable with backing ICC-indicted candidates.
Additionally, the Jubilee narrative argued that international justice, while theoretically important, should not take precedence over Kenyan electoral choice and national prerogatives. The coalition suggested that voters should decide based on electoral platforms and competence rather than on ICC proceedings, which were portrayed as external and not the proper venue for resolving Kenya's internal political contests. This argument essentially asked Kenyan voters to compartmentalize justice concerns from electoral calculations, prioritizing sovereignty and national self-determination over international accountability.
The CORD coalition, by contrast, positioned itself as the vehicle for genuine accountability and international cooperation. The coalition argued that Kenyatta and Ruto should step aside from electoral contestation given the ICC charges, that failing to do so represented defiance of international law, and that a CORD government would cooperate fully with the ICC and promote domestic accountability mechanisms. This framing linked governance legitimacy to justice commitments, suggesting that democracy and accountability were inseparable. However, this messaging proved less electorally potent than Jubilee's counter-framing, in part because it lacked the ethnic mobilization resonance that Jubilee achieved through its narrative.
The ICC factor also influenced campaign dynamics in more subtle ways. Uncertainty about the trajectory of the ICC cases meant that candidates and voters were operating under conditions of partial information: would the cases proceed, collapse, be suspended? This uncertainty itself became a campaign factor, with different candidates and constituencies interpreting ICC developments selectively to support their preferred electoral narratives. Additionally, the ICC cases meant that international observers and Western governments were deeply invested in the election outcome, creating perceptions among some constituencies that external powers were attempting to influence Kenya's political trajectory, which further fueled nationalist framing and resistance to externally-imposed constraints on electoral choice.
Ultimately, Uhuru Kenyatta's victory with 50.07% of the vote, combined with William Ruto's successful election as running mate, demonstrated that ICC indictments could be politically managed and that nationalist sentiment could override international justice considerations in electoral calculation. The election results suggested that Kenyan voters, or at least sufficient voting blocs, prioritized other factors (regional representation, economic considerations, generational change) over participation in international justice processes. The ICC case against Kenyatta would later be withdrawn in December 2014, but the case against Ruto would proceed for another decade, creating sustained ambiguity about the relationship between the ICC indictments and Kenyan electoral politics.
See Also
2013 Election 2013 Election Jubilee Coalition 2013 Election CORD Coalition 2013 Election Results 2013 Election Uhuru Campaign 2013 Election Long-Term Impact
Sources
- International Criminal Court. (2013). Situation in Kenya: Charge Sheet Against Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta and William Samoei Ruto. Retrieved from https://www.icc-cpi.int/
- Human Rights Watch. (2013). Turning Pebbles: Evading Accountability for Post-Election Violence in Kenya. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/
- Waddell, Nicholas and Wardak, Astrid. (2013). Improving the ICC's Engagement with Affected Communities. International Journal of Transitional Justice, 7(2), 234-254.