Last week was a strange week in Nairobi.  If it is possible for a city to have a collective mood, then ours was one of nervous anticipation. It was a mood without any obvious physical manifestations. There was no sign of extra security. People went about their business just as usual. Yet there was not a soul in Kenya’s capital who was unaware of the impending announcement of Luis Moreno Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Whether or not people cared, whether or not they were worried, everyone in Nairobi knew exactly when the announcement was going to come.

Three years ago Kenya experienced a disputed election followed by nationwide violence that left well over a thousand dead and about 650,000 homeless.  The nation has been in a state of recovery ever since. Now after three years later those events were finally going to be addressed. Ocampo was about to announce the names of six Kenyans who would be charged at the Hague as orchestrators of the violence. The charges would include murder, r-pe, deportation and persecution.

Tension in a city such as Nairobi has a meaning different to that in Melbourne or Sydney. This is a city where insurance is advertised not with amusing jingles and cars crashing into weddings, but with images of rioting, burnt-out cars and looted shopfronts. No one was really expecting such violence as a result of Ocampo’s announcement — but memories of the tribal ferocity sparked by Kenya’s disputed 2007 election were certainly on people’s minds.

When the announcement did come the names were are all too familiar. Among them are the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, the party chairman of one of the main political parties, the former Education Minister, the former commissioner of police and the current Head of the Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet. One is the son of Kenya’s founding father and first president. At least two are considered to be serious aspirants to the next Kenyan presidency.

So it understandable that the mood in Nairobi was tense. It is not every day that a country’s political elite is accused of crimes against humanity.

Talking to people about the ICC case I have encountered numerous different takes on the subject.  Many people feel affronted that Kenyan citizens — particularly the politically powerful — are being targeted by a foreign court. A friend compared it to an act of colonialism. Ocampo — who is Argentinian — is portrayed as a white man sticking his nose into Kenyan business, telling them how to run their country.

Generally though, resentment of foreign interference is far outweighed by frustration at Kenyan politicians’ refusal to deal effectively with the issue. The government has three times rejected efforts to try the suspects within Kenya. A survey conducted by a national newspaper just before Ocampo’s announcement found that 85% of Kenyans support the action taken by the ICC.

Public cynicism and disappointment in Kenya’s politicians is palpable. When a report into corruption in Kenya was released by WikiLeaks in 2007 it was met with public outrage. Yet when WikiLeaks last week released a diplomatic cable that alleged that almost every senior politician in Kenya was corrupt the reaction was little other than resignation.

There is a feeling that seeing its senior figures dragged before the Hauge is exactly the shake-up Kenyan politics needs. Kenya is a member nation of the International Criminal Court and will struggle to disregard its rulings. In a neat irony, one of the politicians to be charged by Ocampo was actually involved in and supported UN preparations to form the ICC at the beginning of the decade. Ten years later he will likely find himself in the dock.