If you look back on the political history of Kenya, the key to victory for any entrenched presidency has been to ensure that the opposition is kept divided. This is what opens the way for the political establishment of the day, to absorb some of the smaller parties and thus work towards getting a majority, even if this entrenched political establishment is actually very unpopular.
In 2002, the ruling party Kanu, which had led the country right from Independence, was only uprooted from power because the opposition leaders of the day were able to compromise and suppress their individual ambitions and unite behind one candidate.
We are now facing much the same situation as the opposition leaders of 2002 faced.
Over the past few months, we have seen the rise of the Jubilee Party, which was created by absorbing many smaller parties. The intention here is to create a political party large enough to perpetuate itself, which would effectively be a return to the old politics of single-party rule.
And this effort is not over yet. We hear all around the message that if you do not join JP, then you will not receive development. This goes totally against the spirit of the new Constitution of 2010, which actually makes it mandatory that the central government allocate development resources to all corners of the country.
When we hear this talk of development, we notice there are areas where this development actually is delivered exactly as promised. While other areas – mostly those in the opposition – will get plenty of promises of development, but very little is actually delivered.
Finally, just this week, we all saw on live TV that the President himself has admitted that he is helpless to stop corruption: And yet we have never had worse corruption than we do now. The cartels that are behind official corruption have never been more powerful.
All in all, this is a situation in which the opposition must rise up to the occasion and offer alternative leadership aimed at saving the country. This is the time for setting aside personal ambition and putting Kenya first.
If the opposition leaders of 2002 had not united to create the National Rainbow Alliance, we would have had a continuation of the all-powerful, monolithic Kanu rule, in which opposition parties were powerless.
We have no choice but to form a “Super Alliance” and uproot JP from power.
- Ford Kenya secretary general and MP for Tongaren