OKECH: Pain of the dejected favourite

What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. The tight shoe that has been pinching the left foot is now on the right. National memory is not fickle.

The System and the Deep State were wonderful meddlers in democracy in 2013 and 2017, when UhuRuto enjoyed their peak season of the favourites. They are bad in 2022 because Deputy President William Ruto says the System and the Deep State don't want him to be president.

The history of the meddlesome Deep State and the System is older than the power furore of the Jubilee regime.

Kenya had its first notorious encounter with democracy by 'exclamation' in 1988. One did not have to be popular to win an election. A long queue behind you did not guarantee a win of nominations during party primaries. Winners of 'mlolongo' democracy were poodles of President Moi—the owner of the System and the lord of the Kanu Deep State.

But the claws and fangs of the mongrel were deeply felt in 1992 general election. The meddlers were Kanu police and the notorious lobby Youth for Kanu 1992. The DP was a key member of the System when it bludgeoned and outbribed the opposition into desperation.

Memories of the post-election chaos of 2017, when police executed the most brutal bidding of the System are still fresh. The victims were supporters of the defunct National Super Alliance who had turned out to meet Raila Odinga. The ODM leader was returning from abroad, shortly before the fresh presidential election. Tear gas and bullets rained across town.

The DP, who is now sulking about the System and the Deep State, was probably watching the draconian drama from his official Karen residence.

The pain of the underdog is on the other foot. Regimes always fatten and then sacrifice children of patronage when they deflate the incumbent's vanity. Stars are bright, but they don't appear in the company of the sun.

Former vice presidents Josephat Karanja and George Saitoti shrivelled when the Moi regime spurned them. The System had fattened them for sacrifice.

Karanja was Mathare MP and VP when the System orchestrated his ignominious exit. A nondescript motor mechanic, the late Kuria Kanyingi, from Limuru, Kiambu, was used to dim Karanja's star.

When the conspiracy matured in Parliament, Karanja, a former vice chancellor of the University of Nairobi, said, "Common decency had escaped through the window."

Karanja did not build his own turf outside the Moi patronage. He was brought in after the 1988 general election. He was fattened to cool tempers among the Kikuyu, after Mwai Kibaki was ejected from the VP slot.

Prof Saitoti was VP and Kajiado North MP when Moi threw him under the bus. Friendship and party loyalty could not save Saitoti. Saitoti was Moi's political son. But he was told the presidency was way beyond his depth.

The Saitoti spite was painful: Moi picked Uhuru Kenyatta, then a student in his political nursery, in 2002 to spite Saitoti, a VP for more than a decade, and a bubble political billionaire.

The first VP Oginga Odinga's legacy was built on defiance, after the system he co-founded betrayed him. The icon of liberation politics – Raila Odinga – is an enduring study in defiance, resilience, co-operation, magnanimity, and rebranding. He has done these in the face of a hostile System and meddlesome Deep State.

DP Ruto should learn from the histories of Jaramogi, Kibaki, Saitoti and Raila. The abiding lesson for beneficiaries of political patronage is: Do not build a power base that rivals the master. Don't yap about inheriting a turf whose king is hail. The Deep State and the System detest insubordination.

Stars are bright, but they do not rival the sun. This was the DP's original sin. The man skipped Law 1 in The 48 Laws of Power. This was disingenuous, even from a precocious politician.