The saying is basically an expression of helplessness towards an adverse event that has happened and can’t be remedied, but also an admission that in every two-way situation, blame for failure often rests on both, not just one side.
Last week, NTV ran an expose titled “How Raila Lost”, in which it interviewed, among others, the Chief Agent of the Raila 2022 campaign, Saitabao ole Kanchory and Embakasi East MP Babu Owino.
The two, like my village mates of old, put the blame both on the hen (the Raila Odinga campaign) and the wild cat (the Uhuru Kenyatta government) for the loss of their chicks. Quite often though, without hearing from the hen and the wild cat, we would never know if there is a third player bearing greater responsibility.
The NTV expose seemed to harp on the theory that all along, ever since the Handshake of March 2018, President Kenyatta was playing Raila and had no real intention of handing over power to the former prime minister. I find this a really shallow and escapist narrative.
The fallout between President Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, was so bitter and vicious that to have had that as a script, sounds rather far-fetched. Besides, to play a game of that nature would require the voting population to be so smart as to see through it and understand the implications. I do not think this country has that kind of voter yet.
However, I see the weakness of Uhuru in attempting to influence his transition as revolving largely within the false belief that he had people and the system behind him. In all his three presidential runs, Uhuru can safely be said to have been a project of others.
In 2002, he was outgoing President Moi’s pick. In 2013, by and large, he was the figurehead for the Kibaki security and political networks. And of course, we now know that in 2017, his deputy Ruto was the man running the show around the electoral process.
Because of this, Uhuru, quite unlike Raila and Ruto, never developed his own grassroots political networks as well as solid and dependable contacts within the government system to have his will asserted while in the lame duck phase. Like all of us, I believe Uhuru, too, was surprised that he could be Commander-in-Chief till his last day in office yet couldn’t fulfill something as mundane as having his choice elected President, in Africa of all places! There is simply no way Uhuru was playing Raila.
It is safe for the mole hunters to speak only after the act, but in all past Raila campaigns, when you visit his core teams, you find too many clever people, arrogant beyond measure, stiff-necked and vain, all chanting about how tailors are at that time busy preparing their inauguration suits.
I’m sure some of those eloquently pointing out who to blame on TV fall within this category. Not surprisingly, the postmortems and blame games happen around Raila after every election, but the exact same mistakes are repeated at the next five-year cycle.
Forget how the ODM boss lost in 2022 for a moment and allow me to paraphrase the words of Bob Marley. There is a natural mystic blowing through the air, and if you listen carefully, you will hear chants of “Baba the Sixth”.
As sure as winter is going to be cold, the people who complain about poor management of Raila’s campaigns are already asking for another round, because let’s face it: The Raila name and brand to them is a gold mine at election time.
The most constant issue in any Raila campaign is the small matter of agents. You would be forgiven for imagining that these agents are aliens from outer space, too difficult to find, or something akin to a pandemic vaccine research that has been going on for decades.
If the ODM boss runs again, be sure we will be discussing agents, again. The problem with agents is simple really. There are over 40,000 polling stations in the country. A presidential candidate needs at least two agents per polling station (working the day and night shifts). Remunerated at roughly Sh2,000 plus meals, the cost of keeping agents in a presidential campaign can go up to Sh300 million.
Those who know the inner workings of campaigns suggest that this money is usually handed over to one trusted ally with a simple “here is money for the agents”. They further advise that one shouldn’t be surprised when handlers of agents and agents’ money have apartment blocks coming up in their name in some sleepy towns soon after the election. If the devil tempted Christ with earthly kingdoms as narrated in the Bible, Kenyan presidential candidates really tempt their allies with this much money for agents.
I have to point out one major flaw from the Azimio campaigns. ODM was by far the biggest and most networked party in the country. It was a veteran work horse that had already faced three consecutive general elections, even before 2022, a record at that level in multiparty Kenya.
With Raila running on a borrowed Azimio vehicle, one would have expected ODM to then form the vanguard of national campaigns. But senior ODM officials were shunted aside for newly minted, vociferous Azimio officials. As soon as Azimio top dogs took over the campaign, the problem of zoning and spheres of influence cropped up, as well as how to deal with the many egos in the room.
ODM was practically squeezed into Nyanza and a few outlier strongholds. In a way, Raila’s solid but forgotten vehicle played second fiddle. He was like a man hiking a lift in someone’s else’s vehicle but forgetting to ask his own driver to follow closely in case he ran into a storm. By not playing to the full strengths of ODM, and relying heavily on coalition partners and civil servants, the campaign lost ground from the word go.
In a nutshell though, any postmortem makes sense only if the findings are to be used to improve the next event. After five presidential runs, in totally different circumstances and conditions, it would be interesting to know what the former PM himself thinks has been the biggest failure of his contests.
His handlers may conveniently point to Uhuru and the deep state over the 2022 run, but that still leaves four contests back there. For future political players, the more critical concern would be how to run a presidential campaign without repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
Even more important would be the simple question: Do you want it badly enough to go out of your way in clearing your path to victory at all costs, especially if you have a sitting regime friendly to your ambitions?
The things that win presidential elections happen before the elections, not after.
