The rubber has met the road. We have entered the season of realpolitik, where political debts are collected and IOUs cashed.
MoUs that were signed in darkness are being brought to light, and traitors are about to be generously named at press conferences.
If you thought the presidency was a matter to be sorted at the ballot, think again, because apparently, the seat is also subject to exclusive agreements signed by lawyers in the hours when only owls hunt.
This past week, Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka came out to state he would rather retire to his humble beginnings in Tseikuru, Kitui county, than support ODM chief Raila Odinga, for the presidency one more time in 2022.
The only problem is Raila has been consistent in saying he would not be engaging in any 2022 talk until after the BBI process. So, he is yet to ask someone for support.
In making this declaration, therefore, the Wiper leader behaved like an over-anxious bride unable to wait for the prospective groom to propose first before accepting or rejecting the proposal.
There is a political enterprise in this country in which potential presidential candidates are forced by their tribal bases to run because their names help those on the lower tickets in their parties to win.
These lower cadres do not quite care about the fate of the presidential candidate, as long as they win their own contests.
Before elections, they make pilgrimages to the homes of the party bosses, singing about their supreme wisdom and how these leaders are God’s own gift to the tribe.
Their message usually ends with the scary line saying Armageddon will befall the tribe if the boss doesn’t run for president.
Not many party leaders are known to resist this pseudo-divine message.
This is the first angle from which you must see all these declarations of fitness for office, even before you move on to alliance-building at the national stage.
It is not hard to see what triggered the tiff between Raila and Kalonzo.
First, headlines screamed a week earlier that the President had decided he would support one of the Nasa chiefs in 2022.
Nasa had been declared dead before that, but resurrection has never been an alien concept in our politics.
Shortly after, two of the Nasa chiefs, Raila and Kalonzo, met at the burial of politician Kalembe Ndile, at which they seemed to suggest Nasa would be back with a bang. They also typically found time to lavish praise on each other.
Raila was in Kalonzo’s home turf, so like a chameleon, he found the colours that fit with the environment. Away from the funeral, they both restored factory settings.
The argument from the Kalonzo camp has always been that there was an agreement that Raila would serve only one term and support Kalonzo in the subsequent election.
The Raila camp has meanwhile been cracking its collective head trying to find out where Raila served this term!
Out here among us layman, we don’t struggle too hard to understand how some articles in these nocturnal MoUs are supposed to make sense.
But if indeed the President declared that he would support one of the Nasa principals, he threw the gauntlet at them to identify which one of them would fly the flag.
Presumably, this would mean the three of Raila, Kalonzo and ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi, because there is no conceivable scenario or planet in which they would consider Ford Kenya boss Moses Wetang'ula up to this task.
However, just when the former Nasa chiefs were starting to wonder who had the greater claim to the position of the joint candidate, Jubilee and ODM announced that they were exploring a coalition agreement ahead of next year’s elections.
It caused what they called tumbo joto in the political scene. It was as if the identity of the Nasa chief Uhuru had in mind was finally out of the bag.
It forced Kalonzo to reiterate that he would not support Raila again. To understand the import of this, you have to remember that if Uhuru supports Raila in the coming election, then Jubilee or Uhuru’s support base in Central would rightfully produce Raila’s running mate.
For Kalonzo and Musalia, if Uhuru supports Raila, and BBI is not there to create the offices of Prime Minister and two deputies, then the best they can offer their bases in this arrangement is a wait-and-see on what the ultimate winner offers them.
I doubt they want to be in that scenario. Their other alternative is to run a candidate under their One Kenya Alliance banner.
But as with all these alliances, the unity will be tested when it’s time to pick a flagbearer. Besides, nearly every principal in OKA has been looking up to Uhuru for support, and none probably wants to run in opposition to Uhuru’s choice.
The alliance has gone eerily silent since the Bonchari and Juja by-elections, perhaps taking stock of whether their collective strength is good enough to make a dent in the fortunes of their potential opponents.
The answer is rather obvious, but you wouldn’t get a Kenyan politician to see the obvious if you slapped him with it on the face.
In a nutshell, Kalonzo’s outbursts against Raila confirmed the anxiety currently consuming presidential aspirants across the country. Well-laid plans are not looking solid anymore.
Age is catching up with most of them. Support in the grassroots is waning, as restless supporters and new generations of voters seek alternatives.
Slogans that have been used and reused to tasteless levels are no longer appealing in the political domain.
What is left is a large collection of politicians all seeking high office, all promising to do just one term and all believing they are the deity’s choice to lead this glorious nation.
But the bigger problem for them could just be that if the handshake is finally being turned into an electoral vessel, and the president seems to have picked his man for the coming contest.
There is no belabouring the point that the support of the incumbent goes a long way in helping with a smooth campaign period and transition.
All these tough-speaking aspirants have been angling for the Uhuru endorsement.
If you hear them bweka, to quote Raila, it must be because they each thought Uhuru would settle on them. Now each one has to outwit the opponents some other way.
Reggae maestro Freddie McGregor says in his hit song, Big Ship: “Say when I’m ready you must hold on steady, we are moving on at lightning speed…” Presidential aspirants must get some antacids urgently.
Stomach acidity is about to go a notch higher!
(Edited by V. Graham)
