KENYANS TO DECIDE ON WHO TO BECOME PRESIDENT

Professor Makau Mutua

Kenyans will decide, through the ballot box, who their president will be after the 2007 General Election, and not newspaper columnists. Professors like you and non-professors like me will write and write articles in Newpapers but the effort of doing so will come to nothing since they count for nothing.

While you are free to express your opinion freely, one thing that I found interesting in your article titled "Raila is his own worst enemy, " Nation Newspaper, Online Edition of 2007/07/08, was your failure to recognize that every society all over the world, including New York, is modeled along tribal structure.

While in Kenya it is called tribes, in New York where you live, the same societal structure exists, except it is referred to as races. Furthermore, my good professor of Law, there is nothing wrong with one having a power base from his community. In fact the opposite would be a calamity since charity begins at home.

Even from your own backyard, in the Department of Law where you teach, if there is a contest for an elective position within the University, common sense dictates that you will first and foremost get the support of your department before moving out to solicit and canvass for support from the rest of the departments.

Looked at differently, my good professor, my experience with Canadian, which is one of the most democratic societies in the Western world, informs that politics is just what it is. The struggle for power.

As much as Kenyan politicians, including Hon. Raila Odinga, have been playing politics of tribe, in Canada, it is called politics of regions. In the same way politicians in Kenya have shifted party political allegiance in pursuit of political power, which is the ultimate goal of being in politics, in Canada the same can be said of politicians as well. While in Kenya it is called defection. In Canada and Great Britain, it is called brokerage politics.

Therefore, in my opinion, you are completely out of context to insinuate that Hon Raila Odinga is his worst enemy. In my view, which is the view of the majority in Kenya today, "Hon Raila Odinga is the gift that God has given the Kenyan People" (Dr. Sally Kosgey)

Please, for more information refer to the following site:
http://www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news.php?articleid= 1143971044

Gordon Teti
Winnipeg, Canada