Recently, Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala sparked a storm when he said Kanu chairman Gideon Moi is the weakest link in the nascent One Kenya Alliance.
He based his claim on the fact that Kanu is still holding on to a post-coalition agreement with ruling Jubilee yet the other Oka founding parties had already bolted out of Nasa, effectively breaking political ranks with ODM leader Raila Odinga.
Malala commits one historical transgression with his deeply flawed understanding of coalition politics.
During an interview at the City College of New York in 1990, former South African President Nelson Mandela was criticised for his camaraderie with Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Cuba’s Fidel Castro, perceived by the West as iron fist rulers with no iota of respect for human rights.
Mandela's response was the West’s enemies are not necessarily his enemies.
Therefore, Malala and a certain axis of Oka legislators must not misconstrue their enemies for Gideon’s. Hence, the coterie of strategists around Moi must advise him to entrench his relationship with Raila even further.
There is no doubt that Gideon enjoys a significant degree of acceptability on each side because of his demeanour, underscored by his soft-spoken, never-abrasive and non-polarising nature; traits he never reminds people who care to listen as some of his peers hanging on thin threads do.
For anyone to mount a formidable presidential campaign, their ambitions must transcend just mere roadside pronouncements and unending criticisms to cobbling together an effective campaign infrastructure with financial muscle at the centre of it.
As a matter of fact, it is only Gideon who has the requisite and sufficient resources to infuse into a campaign without fretting or feeling a pinch in his pocket.
To try poking holes into such a crucial figure in a coalition that is yet to flex its political muscles is akin to shooting oneself in the foot.
However, we must cut Malala some slack. How else would he entrench himself in the king’s court while seeking to rise to the helm of Kakamega county?
With friends like Malala around Musalia Mudavadi, the ANC leader surely doesn’t need enemies.
The battle of egos between Mudavadi and Kalonzo Musyoka for the Oka flagbearer position, ostensibly on the account of their political seniority, has come to the fore. Neither Gideon nor Moses Wetang'ula has threatened to ditch the alliance if they are not the presidential candidates.
But one thing is for sure, if Gideon walks out, the alliance will come down tumbling and not even Malala will salvage it.
Gideon is the glue that holds Oka together.
What the Senator for Kakamega – a man with exceptional gift of the garb – is forgetting is that the stakes in the next election are so high that Oka partners cannot afford to belittle each other at such a critical juncture of the country’s quest for honest leadership devoid of empty sloganeering and crass exploitation of poverty.
The point of convergence of interest between Oka and Raila Odinga’s team, believed to enjoy maximum support of the establishment, is at facing off the common political foe: Deputy President William Ruto.
Consequently, a section of Oka must tone down on its incessant attacks on Raila because of the general concurrence that to defeat William Ruto, the alliance must close ranks with Raila and form a united front to confront the supreme hustler nation leader.
To trade barbs now is falling prey to Ruto’s tactic of creating a buffer between Oka and Raila for an easy sail to State House when instead, he must be defeated through all democratic means as a matter of national conscience.
Journalist and writer. nyaindamanass962gmail.com
