Africa-press | Raila meets visiting Senator Chris Coons

Senator Coons, who is leading a  congressional delegation of [anonymous] US Senate and House Representatives, commended President Kenyatta for ensuring peace and stability prevailed during the election period.

[President-elect William] Ruto on the other hand said the talks touched on the just concluded elections in the country and areas of cooperation between Kenya and the United States.

... Coons, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and his delegation have already visited Cape Verde [sic] and Mozambique and are expected to visit Rwanda, where the Congo tensions and human rights should be on the agenda following Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Kigali [and South Africa] last week....

... After meeting with Kenyatta, Odinga, and Ruto, Coons told the AP "I was encouraged that in all three meetings we heard a commitment to a call for calm and tranquility, to respect the legal processes established in the 2010 constitution." He said the conversations were about the rule of law, the importance of free and fair elections and peaceful transitions.

"Obviously, the United States has had a very difficult experience with these issues for the past few years," Coons said, referring to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as former President Donald Trump tried to remain in power. "I said in all three meetings we have things to learn from Kenya." ...

In a [1984] college paper article, the [imminent] senator wrote the source of his conversion from Republican to Democrat was his [semester abroad in] Kenya. His rivals [of the Ethiopian-American persuasion] used the article to claim that Coons had confessed the Kenyan trip converted him into a Marxist.