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Moi's Vengful Uchawi Broth for ODM-K « Thread Started on Jun 29, 2007, 1:29pm » |
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A Political Forecast from the typing fingers of Onyango Oloo Just to get the temporal context right: I am keyboarding this on the evening of June 28, 2007. Uhuru Kenyatta can afford to smirk this evening from ear to ear after a Nairobi court vindicated his claim to be the legitimate leader of the official opposition. Raila Odinga on the other hand, going by tonight’s telecasts, may seem to some to have thrown in the towel after he apparently was coerced into going along with his fellow rival aspirants’ clamour for the consensus path to picking the ODM-K presidential candidate. Of course, sources at the meeting indicate that Agwambo put up a very spirited fight for the delegates option. What however, lies behind these breaking stories from Thursday, June 28, 2007? To unlock the puzzle we must seek the key at Kabarnet Gardens-the leafy suburb that rubs shoulders with the teeming slums of Kibera. That is the location of former President Moi’s Nairobi domicile. The???!!! question and exclamation marks are rushing fast and furious on the befuddled brows of my mystified readers, I can already detect. So let me abandon my sphinx like cryptic musings and let the proverbial paka out of the gunia. Nipasue mayai? Can someone say PASUA! Haya basi na IPASUKE: It is none other than former President Daniel arap Moi working in cahoots with sitting President Mwai Kibaki who has been egging on, some say BANK ROLLING the strident efforts of Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and William Ruto to push the consensus wheel barrow up the rocky hill of Raila Odinga’s delegate’s path. That is the story on the streets of Nairobi-at least according to THREE different but very reliable sources that I have come to trust in terms of their analysis and political foresight. I want to acknowledge their contribution to this digital essay by stating up front that very little I am about to unleash is attributable to any originality on my part. So what are they saying? Basically, former President Moi is still very pissed off about Agwambo’s 2002 Trojan horse demolition of the former ruling Jogoo party at that year’s polls. Baba Gideon, so the story goes, has been methodically plotting his vengeance ever since, seething with glowing indignation at the utter cheek of the Lang’ata MP to try and wrestle away the self-proclaimed "Professor of Politics" mantle from the ex Ikulu resident. My sources tell me that it was Moi who paid for not only the recent KANU National Delegates Conference, but paradoxically also, Musalia Mudavadi’s vision launch. One of my sources adds that part of the muthendi for this endeavour was advanced by forces close to the current occupant of that palatial structure on that particular hill in Nairobi. One will notice that Kalonzo, Ruto and Mudavadi are in one sense or another, Moi’s adopted sons-groomed and elevated to public office by the former head of state. Their entire political history, save the last minute bolt from the Baba na Mama Party was spent as groveling supplicants sycophantically singing paeans to the blood stained iron fisted dictatorship of KANU and its supremos. Kalonzo took off from KANU at the 12th hour in a huff when he was passed over in the internal succession wrangles that favoured the junior Kenyatta while Mudavadi and Ruto stayed to the bitter end, one deputizing Moi and the other playing a role as a powerful minister in the neo-colonial state bureaucracy and a dastardly part as a top ranking KANU official. But Ruto has been at loggerheads with Moi I hear the devil advocates bleat in their anguished chorus. Even so, my fractious and querulous interlocutors, even so. Subira huvuta heri, haraka haraka haina baraka I counsel you my codiscussants, please I beg you: persevere with the digital outpourings for eight more minutes, I plead. True, Ruto bolted from the gaze, the shadow and the wings of the old man from Sacho and he was flexing his young muscles, elbowing his way to his own political space not just in the Rift Valley Province, but Kenya-wide. He was more than a tactical ally of Raila Odinga, closer to a political bosom buddy. Until that is, the Lang’ata MP poked the Eldoret North rep viciously in the eye by hugging and embracing the two Kosgeys-Henry and Sally. Sources inside the Kalenjin community intimate to me that William Ruto has spent a big chunk of his young political life fighting for legitimacy within Nandi politics. I hear that Henry Kosgey has been at the forefront, along with his female namesake Sally, of those Nandi politicians questioning the ethnic bona fides of William Ruto, alleging that the KANU Secretary General is in fact a Kipsigis who resettled in Nandiland. Given the bragging rights among the Nandi and the Kipsigis as to who is better educated, more “civilized” and therefore "natural leader" of the Kalenjin cluster, placing a question mark over Ruto’s sub-ethnic origins is more than a slight slight. You can then imagine the sense of personal outrage and feeling of being demeaned when William Ruto witnesses his ostensible ally Raila Odinga reach out not only to the two Kosgeys but also to another intra-ethnic foe, former cabinet minister Kipkalya Kones. I am told that this alleged political put down is what created a chill in the hitherto cozy ties between Raila and Ruto. But the story does not end there. Back to Moi. He is reputed to have vowed that he would do everything in his power to dismantle the unity of ODM-K-as long as Raila Odinga was the flag-bearer of the opposition behemoth. And Kibaki’s people wanted to go much further and break up ODM-K no matter WHO was the flag bearer. With Agwambo starting off as the run away ODM-K front runner and Presidential candidate apparent, Moi threw away his retirement verandah rocking chair, hit the gym, scrolled through his phone book, went back to dirty work, calling up his acolytes, protégés and agents in place all over the Kenyan mainstream political landscape. He knew he still could get Kalonzo Musyoka’s ear and count on an audience with Musalia Mudavadi who MO1 literally saw as a son, given the bonds between the late senior Mudavadi and Jonathan’s dad. Speaking of sons, Bill Ruto of late had the profile of the mwana mpotevu (who hopefully returns to the kraal to supply the tale’s happy ending). As for Uhuru Kenyatta-we will come to him after a dozen or so paragraphs. It is at this point that Daniel arap Moi decided to repay a very old favour granted to him by his former vice-president-Mwai Kibaki. You see, way back in 1992, Moi was a goner, a frozen swara caught in the headlights of the oncoming FORD multi-party gari la moshi. Even after it split into its many Asili and Kenya offspring, FORD was still on course to pose an almost insurmountable challenge to Moi’s incumbency, with Matiba ruling the central Kenyan vote and commanding a big following in Western province with Jaramogi and his FORD-K Young Turks (Raila, Wamalwa, Muite, Imanyara, Anyang Nyongo, Orengo etc) drawing delirious, fist shaking, foot stomping opposition followers (and voters) across the country. Moi talks to Mwai who forms DP principally to DIVIDE the Agikuyu and the larger GEMA vote. DP makes inroads in parts of Meru and other sections of the Mount Kenya area. Come the elections, Moi squeaks through, thanks to the engineered split in FORD (and there are pundits to this day who insist that Matiba was a Moi mole all along, but there are enough conspiracy theories in this one digital essay to allow us room to dash on that Asili, ugali eating tangent). The same thing happens in 1997 when Kibaki parts company with a livid opposition plotting to reject the rigged results. So eventually Daniel arap Moi is handed a 10-year life-line courtesy of Kibaki and the DP. Ten years after those tumultuous elections it is Kibaki who is now fighting for his political life. Despite the feel good, make believe miraculous economic turn around and the doctored opinion polls, Kibaki and his team are scared sh!tless that if Raila becomes the ODM-K candidate then they are staring political death right on the eyeballs. The aging professor of politics, gratitude oozing from every graying pore, starts yakking on the sly with GNU’s mtongoria about returning a favour. He is said to have said something that can be paraphrased as follows: “You gave me ten years at the end of my reign of terror. I can certainly give you at least another five. Kenyatta and I served more than one term, why should you not renew your lease at Ikulu?” And Kibaki is hardly in a position to turn down the offer. Half of his maiden cabinet comprises the current de facto opposition leaders. He has just been dragged through the mud of ignominious defeat at the 2005 referendum and his score card on constitution making, job creation and what not looks rather thread-bare. One of my friends pointed out to me that Lucy Kibaki made a much overlooked overture to the Mwingi North MP the other day in Machakos. She pleaded with Kalonzo to mend fences with the Othaya MP and he would be sorted out, more or less. Those in the know swear that Kalonzo and Mudavadi, to name just two, have been sold on the idea that they have more to fear from Raila than any other politician in the country. Another one of my pals faults Raila Odinga for often over-valorizing short term tactical concerns over longer term strategic considerations, arguing that if Raila had had his strategic thinking cap on, he would not have lifted Mudavadi from oblivion, Ruto from the doldrums and Kalonzo from the periphery to the centre-stage of Kenyan mainstream politics. He would have seen right away that the trio wamechanjwa na uKANU. According to her, the KANU chickens are back home to roost and what she terms Agwambo’s Machiavellian acrobatics and antics have simply come unstuck . Whatever the case, the unfolding vuta-ni-kuvute saga over the controversial “consensus” option is music to the ears of Kibaki strategists and Moi die hards who are waiting eagerly to witness what they are convinced will be the comeuppance of the Lang’ata MP and a guaranteed second term for the Othaya MP. To prove his case, a third buddy of mine has even broken it down in cold hard numbers. According to him, the calculations are as follows: He estimates that there will be approximately slightly over 7.3 million votes cast. Of that number, if ODM-K remains intact, ODM will garner at least 4.12 million votes with the rest going to Kibaki. I will not include the detailed table where he breaks down the projected vote region by region according to the various party affiliations. If you talk to me nicely, I could email you the same as an attachment-with his permission of course. In comes the KANU factor. There is Moi’s anti-ODM gambit, which he has not tried to hide even for a sec. Uhuru Project Part Two is unleashed, not as a sure fire winner this time around but as a SPOILER. Some pundits believe that if Uhuru runs as a KANU Presidential candidate, he can easily pull at least 0.9 million votes from the ODM-K kitty. I have heard of at least three different attempts to make Uhuru run as a KANU spoiler- one from the Moi forces, the other one from the folks around Kibaki and one from Uhuru Kenyatta himself. The Moi plot is intertwined with the Kalonzo/Ruto/Mudavadi push for consensus hoping for a splintering among the ODM-K luminaries to give rise to something akin the dismembering of the original FORD. The Kibaki effort, at least according to a Deep Throat immersed in the highest NARC-Kenya echelons, is spearheaded by three geriatric comprador bourgeois fat cats from among the Agikuyu: John Michuki, Njenga Karume, and surprisingly, Kenneth Matiba of all people. Each of these wazee considers thimself to be the spiritual, traditional or political god father of the fortysomething Uhuru. They have said publicly over the years that they are the ones who politically “circumcised” the Gatundu South MP. Njenga Karume in particular, prides himself as having been once Uhuru’s chief political strategist and some people claim that in a TRADITIONAL, not necessarily LITERAL sense, he is the one who “inherited” Mama Ngina, Jomo’s widow and Uhuru’s mom. What they have been trying to drum into Uhuru is this: Please ensure Kibaki gets a second term and then come 2012, it will be YOU, NOT as he thinks, Professor Saitoti, who will be Gikuyu candidate through NARC-Kenya and thus perpetuate a GEMA presidential dynasty. According to my source, NARC-Kenya is NOT a vehicle for 2007 but 2012 and its chief financier Kinuthia Muthengi Saitoti, is waiting in the wings to take over from Kibaki five years hence. It is this tribal Holy Grail that they are dangling in front of Uhuru- and threatening him that if UK does not cooperate they will not only send him packing in 2007, but lock him out in 2012 as well. Apparently the three wazee have managed to convince Mama Ngina who in turn is leaning heavily on her son to acquiesce to this internal Gikuyu tribal “consensus”. Only problem is, Uhuru Kenyatta is NOT playing ball because at heart he is NOT a tribalist but a Kenyan nationalist. During his recent address before KANU’s national delegates at their Kasarani, Uhuru exhorted his fellow party members to remember that KANU has NEVER missed on the ballot once in its 47 year history-a subliminal message that he, Uhuru was going to go it alone as KANU’s presidential candidate. But Uhuru is a fairly intelligent guy- he knows there is no chance in hell, heaven or earth that he can be elected President of Kenya in 2007. So why run at all? Well, Uhuru too, wants to be a spoiler for EVERYBODY, but ON HIS OWN TERMS. According to one of his closest aides, Uhuru argues that in 2002 he spent billions and harvested 2.8 million votes. Uhuru also points that his own father, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta waited for FIFTY YEARS for the presidency. Considering his forty-something age, Uhuru figures that time is on HIS SIDE that one day, he too will become President of Kenya. So Uhuru wants to spoil ODM-K chances this year for his, Uhuru’s FUTURE political ambitions. The best case scenario according to the Moi/Mwai camps who are cooperating very closely in this year’s election campaign is to force perhaps a three or even four way split within ODM-K, have Uhuru run as the KANU nominee, unite the Mount Kenya vote around Mwai Kibaki and bank on the spineless opportunism of Musikari Kombo and his FORD-Kenya herd, Ali Mwakwere and Shirikisho wafflers, Nyachae and his FORD-People careerists and the rivulets of stray supporters that the Tujus, the Mwenyengalas, Boniface Mgangas and John Seruts can bring to a 2008 Government of National Unity with the ultimate victim being Raila Odinga and what is left of his hard core Orange supporters. Pretty rosy picture for Kibaki, one with an idle and shallow mind would think,ama. There are two big assumptions which make the above scenarios fallacious dead ends. The first assumption is that Kenyans will vote along ethnic lines in 2007 and that the various so called party leaders will “deliver” their tribal constituencies. The second assumption is that CLASS will play a negligible role in this year’s elections. Let me deal with the class aspect, FIRST. Let us start in Kibaki’s own backyard of Mount Kenya. It is widely assumed that it will be Flower party all the way-or its variant, DP. If the recent chaos bedeviling the NARC-K elections is anything to go by, then there will be a lot of pay back time come December as pro-Kibaki incumbents are turfed out by an irate public. One of my friends from the greater Meru area who has seen the inside of parliament once or twice was telling me the other day that NARC-Kenya is seen in the Mount Kenya region as a party for MPs who are afraid of the electorate. How far the ire against the incumbents will translate into an anti-Kibaki vote is rather speculative, but the smug safety zone that many MPs feel they will be operating on is likely to degenerate into treacherous quick sand in a few months. In areas like Muranga, Nyeri, Kiambu and Thika, most of the incumbent MPs are solidly behind the tough law and order martial talk of Internal Security minister John Michuki who has reportedly boasted that he will make sure he “totally wipes out Mungiki” even if he has to kill 20,000 Mungiki suspects in the process. But guess who these Mungiki suspects are in this 2007 election year? They are the tens of thousands of youth who showed up in droves to vote in these Mungiki fearing incumbents in Nyeri, Muranga, Thika and Kiambu! A couple of weeks ago there were whispers all over Nairobi that Mungiki operatives had delivered a note to Michuki’s wife vowing that Mungiki would ensure that Kibaki was VOTED OUT because of the wanton police brutality and indiscriminate extra judicial executions. Whether this is an urban legend or not, is difficult to verify, especially if one is outside the Agikuyu community. What is uncontested however is the chilly tension between Agikuyu comprador bourgeoisie wallowing in parliament and the feared Mungiki adherents whose reputations oscillate between gruesome crime sprees and class based rich/poor populist demagoguery. Will the Mungiki factor determine the outcome of the Mount Kenya vote? That remains to be determined in December but clearly talk of an air tight ethnic bloc of votes for Kibaki is by no means a certainty. Strolling to the Coast Province, one sees Shirikisho positioning itself to be a key partner of a 2008 Kibaki Government of National Unity while conveniently shedding of the unpopular NARC-Kenya green t-shirt. But it is populated by political rejects like Ali Mwakwere and Ananias Mwaboza who lost these upcoming elections at least two years ago. The Coast will remain a massive ODM-K zone no matter what happens to the presidential contest. Nyachae and his FORD-People schemers should buy a coffin for the party for it is being buried in December. Uhuru Kenyatta will lose his Gatundu South seat and do worse than Munyua Waiyaki and Wangari Maathai did if he runs for the Presidency in 2007. KANU itself is a party in rapid disintegration and degeneration. KANU’s mass base will consolidate the ODM-K vote and its errant leaders will be swept away by the punishing political floods if they attempt to go it alone. How about ODM-K itself? Will it survive as a united entity? Of course NOT. And that is a GOOD THING. Some of the opportunists in ODM-K, led by Kalonzo Musyoka, Julia Ojiambo and Musalia Mudavadi should go where they belong-either break off as an ODM-K (Conservative) wing or slide right into a newly fangled pro Moi alliance. Mudavadi will relearn the lessons of 2002 about selling out patriotic aspirations while Kalonzo will seek a job with the Africa Union as a peace mediator to save face after his rout at the polls-both in Mwingi and nationally. William Ruto being the hard nosed pragmatist that he is, will probably make his peace with the Raila faction of ODM-K at the end of the day. How about Raila Odinga himself? In order for him to become President of Kenya at the end of this year, he must do at least three things: Jettison the coterie of do-nothing sycophants and careerists who stifle his national strategic thinking; Reach out to leaders and activists embedded among the Left Democratic social forces; Ensure there is a massive turn out of voters, especially first time voters come election day, 2007. So what next? Some other time, OK? I have been writing for what seems to be an eternity, but is, in reality, only one and a half hours on the evening of Thursday, June 28, 2007 Onyango Oloo Nairobi, Kenya | ||
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