Bug of ambition kills reason

Every five years tempers of the ambitious flare, political marriages fray as new courtships begin. The season of political conspiracies beckon.

The bug of ambition injects delusion in its victims when it bites. This deluded illusion of grandeur may see the 2022 general election end in a presidential run-off.

Every ethnic bloc can produce a presidential aspirant, but only one can score 50-plus one, and at least 25 per cent in 24 of 47 counties. It takes grinding resilience to make the grade.

The ambition smitten are free to run for president; it's their democratic right to be deluded, but only one will win. The logic eludes wannabe presidents, even those with experience in losing.

Wiper Democratic Movement leader Kalonzo Musyoka intends to run for president a second time. He did so for the first time in 2007 on the ODM Kenya ticket.

Even then he saw largely imaginary paths to victory. His African Inland Church heritage, with its networks, and loyalty to former President Daniel arap Moi, were supposed to be passwords into Rift Valley.

Ukambani's proximity to Meru was another path to winning. Being an alumnus of Meru High School would spice Kalonzo win of the Ameru vote.

ODM-K strategists were co-opted into the delusion that Kalonzo was the middle of centre presidential candidate. He was expected to reap from the nail-biting race between incumbent Kibaki and change-charged Raila Odinga's ODM.

Kalonzo lost the 2007 presidential race, but sneaked his way into the Kibaki Executive.

The Deep State muddled the 2007 presidential election for Kibaki, but he lacked numbers in Parliament to push Party of National of Unity agenda. Kalonzo seized the opportunity that saw him appointed Vice President.

Kibaki, with a united Kikuyu vote behind him, grabbed a second term courtesy of the meddlesome Deep State. Kalonzo's co-option competed the muddle that created the Grand Coalition Government of 2008-13 – a post-election violence stopper.

Raila was then enjoying the support of five of eight provinces, with a split Nairobi cosmopolitan vote. But the Deep State feared his pro-people push. He is yet to declare he is running for president.

Musalia Mudavadi took a solo presidential lap in 2013, scoring below 500,000 votes. But he was in the winning ODM team of 2007, which lost at the vote tallying.

Steak-holders messed the 2013 vote in favour of the coalition of Uhuru Kenyatta's The National Alliance Party and William Ruto's United Republican Party. The muddle was repeated in 2017 in favour of UhuRuto's Jubilee Party.

Raila, Mudavadi and Kalonzo, as National Super Alliance principals, were victims of this muddle. Their 2017 supporters want them to hunt together again during the general election due next year.

Senator Gideon Moi is banking on a viable coalition. He knows after 24 years of Moi presidency it's too soon for another Moi, even with the meddlesome Deep State.

The Moi scion also knows rank-outsider Ruto is whipping the Kalenjin Rift Valley into believing he is their messiah to reclaim the presidency, 20 years after Moi retired.

Ruto's marketing pitch is that he supported Uhuru in 2002, 2013, and twice in the 2017 elections. He hopes this would mobilise the Agikuyu to perpetuate the 60-year-old Kalenjin-Kikuyu stranglehold on state power.

The ramble in Mt Kenya is a variant of these ambitions. The restlessness in Mt Kenya region is a script from Corey Robin's 'The Reactionary Mind'. They are motivated by "the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back."

In 1992, a divided opposition lost to Moi and Kanu. The winning threshold then was garnering 25 per cent of the votes cast in five of eight provinces.

Moi walloped a splintered opposition again in 1997. But in 2002, a united opposition upset the status quo. But experience is an elusive teacher for the ambition smitten.