The independence-era political giant Tom Mboya is reported to have told off a group of his critics with these words: “You fools think that politics is easy. But politics is no joke.”
These words may well sum up what President William Ruto would be tempted to tell some of his critics in the present day: Only of course I would hope he would not openly call them “fools”.
For in the context that I read these remarks of Tom Mboya all those years ago, those who were criticising him believed that he had failed to provide an immediate solution to some problem posed to their interests. And as far as they were concerned, the solution seemed obvious enough.
But what appears easy and simple from the outside tends to prove absolutely intractable once the politician enters high office.
Consider these two examples from the transport sector, which illustrate the universal truth that politics is all about tradeoffs rather than permanent solutions. And that in resolving the problems of one group, you will usually upset another group that has vastly different interests.
First is the criticisms levelled against Ruto by Mombasa-based road transporters who had lost their jobs when the government made it mandatory for all containers leaving the Port of Mombasa to be transported inland using the new standard gauge railway.
Now with Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen having announced the government’s intention to extend this SGR all the way to Malaba at the border with Uganda, the road transport interests – heavily invested in long-distance trucks – felt betrayed.
But from the Ugandan point of view, this extension of the SGR cannot happen soon enough. As a landlocked country, having swift and reliable access to the sea is a top priority. If the SGR should be extended to Malaba, it would provide Uganda with something it has long craved – getting its imports and exports transported with a minimum of interference from Kenyan port-based cartels.
Nonetheless, a spokesperson for the Kenya Transport Association bluntly stated that this decision to extend the SGR amounted to “abdicating responsibility to improve the economic welfare of the people.”
My second example relates to the news reports that President Ruto is negotiating with US carrier Delta Airlines for the sale of the government’s substantial stake in Kenya Airways.
This comes against a background of Kenya Airways, which already had financial problems going way back, making epic losses over the past few years, mostly due to the Covid-19 pandemic putting a stop to all international travel for all of 2020 and even beyond.
Now keeping an airline profitable is no easy feat, and although in Kenya we tend to blame all such financial disasters on corruption, even in countries where corruption is rarely ever an issue, airlines fail all the time.
And there are many airlines that are seen as 'national carriers' (in much the same way that we see 'our' Kenya Airways as a national carrier) that are owned by other and even bigger airlines.
Consider that the Dutch airline KLM, which for many years was a major shareholder in Kenya Airways, has itself been owned by Air France since 2004, even though each airline operates as a separate company and retains its distinct and longstanding identity.
Likewise, the giant German airline Lufthansa owns no less than three airlines each of which is considered a 'national carrier'—SWISS (in Switzerland), Austrian Airlines (in Austria) and Brussels Airlines (in Belgium).
So, there would be nothing strange in Kenya Airways being wholly or partially owned by Delta Airlines, with which it already has a code-share agreement for flights to the US.
But if previous controversies over the beloved KQ are anything to go by, Kenyans are not going to stand by and watch 'their airline' being sold to 'foreigners' without putting up a fight.
No matter what the economic logic of the President’s proposal may be, Kenyans have for far too long been proud of 'ours' being the only African airline, apart from Ethiopian Airlines, which is “as good as any other”.
They will not be in any hurry to face the fact that it is now just one more failed African airline.
