Following his boycott of the October 26, 2017, re-run election and in rejection of the October election's legitimacy, opposition leader Raila Odinga conducted a parallel presidential inauguration ceremony on January 30, 2018, wherein he was sworn in as "People's President" by a sympathetic judge, Jacobus Okwanyo. The parallel inauguration represented a dramatic symbolic gesture of defiance against what Raila characterized as an illegitimate electoral process and a refusal to accept the outcome of an election he had boycotted. The People's President inauguration raised questions regarding the boundaries of legitimate political opposition and the relationship between institutional procedures and popular sovereignty.
The People's President ceremony occurred nearly three months after the October 26 re-run election and approximately one month before Uhuru Kenyatta's official second term inauguration. The timing of Raila's parallel inauguration was intended to preempt and undermine Kenyatta's official second inauguration, establishing a counter-claim to executive authority. The ceremony was attended by thousands of opposition supporters and was widely covered by media, creating a dramatic visual representation of the political crisis persisting in Kenya.
The legal basis for the parallel inauguration was tenuous. The parallel ceremony had no constitutional recognition and lacked any institutional or democratic legitimacy in official terms. However, Raila's legal and political advisors constructed arguments suggesting that the People's President represented an expression of popular sovereignty wherein Raila, as the candidate allegedly preferred by the majority of Kenyan voters, constituted a legitimate alternative power center to the incumbent government. This popular sovereignty framing suggested that institutional procedures (the IEBC-administered election) could be superseded by claims to represent the actual preference of the electorate.
The opposition characterized the People's President initiative as a form of peaceful resistance to what was characterized as electoral coup d'etat by the incumbent government. By this framing, the government had subverted democratic procedures through IEBC manipulation and through boycotting the October re-run of an election that had been nullified on procedural grounds. Raila's parallel government was thus presented as a legitimate alternative power structure representing those opposed to the incumbent regime.
The Jubilee government and its allies characterized the People's President ceremony as unconstitutional and as a threat to state authority. Government officials argued that Raila was attempting to create an alternative government apparatus and that this constituted an illegal challenge to state authority. Some government officials suggested prosecuting Raila for various alleged crimes, including sedition or attempting to establish an alternative government. However, the government ultimately did not pursue formal prosecution, likely calculating that doing so would further delegitimize the government and trigger international criticism.
Internationally, the People's President ceremony received mixed reactions. Some international observers characterized it as a concerning challenge to constitutional authority and state legitimacy. However, others noted that Raila's parallel government was symbolic rather than operational and represented a form of peaceful opposition rather than violent challenge to state authority. The contrast between Raila's symbolic resistance and the government's attempt at electoral legitimization through a second election suggested that Kenya's political crisis remained contested and unresolved.
The parallel government lasted nominally through March 2018, when Raila and Uhuru orchestrated their historic handshake and announced joint commitment to national unity. The handshake effectively ended the parallel government initiative, with Raila abandoning the People's President framework and accepting Uhuru as the legitimate president. However, the brief existence of the parallel government had demonstrated the depth of Kenya's political crisis and the resistance that opposition actors could mount to electoral outcomes they deemed illegitimate.
The People's President ceremony exemplified the tension between constitutional procedures and popular sovereignty that animated Kenya's 2017 electoral crisis. While the ceremony had no constitutional basis, it represented an attempt by opposition actors to claim legitimacy outside official institutional frameworks. The fact that the ceremony occurred without violent state repression and that Raila subsequently negotiated with Uhuru suggested that Kenya's political system, while stressed, possessed capacity to accommodate symbolic opposition and to facilitate political negotiation even in contexts of profound crisis.
See Also
2017 Election 2017 Election October Re-run 2017 Election Raila Boycott 2017 Election Handshake Prelude 2017 Election Long-Term Impact
Sources
- Raila Odinga. (2018). People's President Inauguration Ceremony and Statement. Retrieved from https://www.odinga.or.ke/
- International Crisis Group. (2018). Kenya's Political Crisis: From Parallel Government to Reconciliation. Retrieved from https://www.crisisgroup.org/
- Muigai, Githu. (2018). Constitutional Authority and Popular Sovereignty: Kenya's 2017 Crisis. East African Law Review, 44(1), 34-52.