ELIZABETH JACKSON: Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta has been charged with horrific crimes of using his family's wealth to bankroll death squads that have slaughtered women and children.

But that knowledge did not stop him, or his former foe turned running mate, from standing for the highest office in the country and getting elected.

When Kenya's Chief Justice declared Uhuru Kenyatta as the winner of the election, there was a fundamental shift in the way Kenyans viewed themselves and in the way others viewed them.

Our Africa correspondent Ginny Stein reports that it's no longer business as usual.

GINNY STEIN: There was always going to be one guarantee when I moved to Kenya - that a lot of my time would be spent following a trial that whichever way it went, would be well written into history.

It's not every day that a country's president is called to stand trial before the International Criminal Court.

And not just any president, but the son of Kenya's founding father Jomo Kenyatta.

His son Uhuru, whose name means independence or freedom, was not originally thought to want a career in politics but somewhere along the line that changed.

And according to the allegations before the court, there was little, once he decided that he wanted office, that he would stop at to get there.

Today, he and his deputy William Ruto are united. But there was a time in Kenya when William Ruto chanted "don't be vague, go to The Hague" when he thought it was only Uhuru Kenyatta who would be indicted.

Now he too has been called before the court.

Both men are accused of orchestrating murder in order to beat each other.

Ever since 2007's post-election violence, where more than 1300 people were killed and almost half a million made homeless, Kenya's political elite have squirmed and turned over who should be held accountable and how justice should ultimately happen.

Once loyal supporters of the International Criminal Court, now that the focus is at home, support in Kenya has not so much wavered, but faltered.

In the past few weeks, political wriggling on this issue has reached new levels. The African Union this week bowed in to pressure and added its voice, with Ethiopia's president accusing the International Criminal Court of hunting Africans because of their race.

Hailemariam Desalegn, Ethiopia's prime minister and chairman of the African Union, made it clear he would be complaining to the UN about what he viewed a flawed system, which ensured that 99 per cent of those indicted were African.

While that animosity is expressed loudly in many quarters across Africa, so too has there been support for when it's wanted.

University of Nairobi Law Professor Paul Wambua says attempts to pull out of the International Court process fail to acknowledge that once a case is before the court, it is too late.

PAUL WAMBUA: We submitted ourselves to the jurisdiction of the ICC (International Criminal Court); we are bound to co-operate.

Now the procedure for trial of ICC cases is very clear - if for whatever reason, Kenya wants to pull out of the ICC, then the procedure is well provided, and that does not affect pending cases, which means once a case has been properly referred to the ICC it must be concluded.

GINNY STEIN: But even before Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto decided to join forces to run for office, manoeuvring on this issue had begun.

Despite giving assurances that are willing to front the International Criminal Court in The Hague, they would rather the case be brought back to Kenya.

And this is despite the rules on whether and how the matter should be tried were clearly defined under a commission of inquiry into the post-election violence headed by Justice Philip Waki.

While the International Criminal Court case looks set to proceed, there are doubts and some say the case is in fact doomed.

The chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has revealed that unprecedented levels of witness intimidation and bribery are undermining the cases brought against Kenya's two top politicians.

Those tactics are only likely to escalate. In a country where power is all, it is hard to see any Kenyan brave enough or foolhardy enough to take the witness stand against a head of state.

But the bottom line is that without an outcome, for the hundreds of thousands of people who remain homeless there will be no justice until someone is held to account.

This is Ginny Stein in Nairobi for Correspondents Report.