It took just a few days between the declaration by Kiambu Woman Representative Gathoni Wamuchomba that she was heading for a “meeting behind the tent”, and her popping up at DP William Ruto’s side in widely circulated pictures.
It turns out you don’t have to be a prophet to predict that once politicians go behind that proverbial tent, they will come back donning new political team colours.
Clearly, after the defeat of the Jubilee Party in the Juja parliamentary by-election, Wamuchomba and several other allies of President Uhuru Kenyatta must have consulted the ground and found out that he was haemorrhaging support at an alarming rate. Consequently, their own political future would have to be determined without trying to “die for the President”. After all, only one saviour gave his life for humanity at Calvary.
For the handshake brothers, President Kenyatta and ODM chief Raila Odinga, the more instructive issue should be that even as many of their Mt Kenya region allies appear to be warming up to the DP by the day, there is simply no one doing the prodigal son or daughter routine by leaving Ruto for the President.
In political terms, therefore, there is no miracle through which one can say Uhuru will regain this support, and least of all, transfer it to anyone in the coming poll. Simply put, if the President intends to influence his succession, he will have to do it without the Kikuyu vote. And this is not entirely a bad thing, as we will see shortly, even though he then has to rally support only for someone who can win the contest without the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin vote.
At the burial of the mother of ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi, Uhuru suggested it was time for the presidency to stop changing hands between two communities in the country, and start rotating across the land.
What he may not have mentioned was that in those 50 odd years, the two communities built tribal industrial complexes encompassing everything from security networks, tender merchants, bottomless pits of corruption and nepotism rings that cannot go away just by having a different person as President.
If Uhuru really meant his words, then nothing would satisfy him more than these two communities voting against his wishes and heading to the opposition. It would give the new President from a “neutral” tribe a better start for recalibration of government.
The bigger question then is, can the President and his handshake allies win the next election without DP Ruto’s Kalenjin and his own Kikuyu voters? The answer is a little more complicated.
There is no compelling reason to use the last three elections in cracking numbers and determining a strategy because we can’t vouch for their credibility. However, conventional wisdom has it that Raila, for instance, enjoys the support of almost half of the voting population, since 2007. The people at Chungwa House may want to state a higher figure.
More importantly, in 2013 and 2017, Raila reached this milestone without the support of the key communities mentioned here. There is now universal agreement in Raila’s own circles that what he has been lacking in contests his people feel he won was the backing of the state machinery to expedite the transition, like it did for Mwai Kibaki in 2002. This should explain to restless Raila bases why, even when some of Uhuru’s actions may have appeared very unpopular during the life of the Handshake, Raila has been measured, and has avoided antagonising the President.
I believe his strategists feel that if they were to sacrifice a few thousand votes for the backing of the system, then so be it. If indeed this strategy works, and with the President’s support, Raila gets sworn in as Kenya’s fifth president — without the support of the two communities — the biggest advantage to Raila is that he starts his presidency without a huge political debt on his shoulders, the kind where he would have been asked to do one term and return the favour.
He also gets a chance to deal with all the issues in the in-tray. He only needs to immediately engage the Moi political doctrine, on how the old man ruled 24 years without the support of the Luo and the Kikuyu, by simply tightening his control of the instruments of state and scattering the opposition to the four winds.
The worry for Raila strategists, in my view, should be at what point he and everyone around him will accept the reality that the support of the Mt Kenya community isn’t forthcoming, and they should be busy crunching their numbers without it.
With just over a year to the election, it would be a political tragedy to send Raila on a vain mission to placate Central Kenya voters, instead of spending that time consolidating his bases in Western, Coast, Nyanza, Nairobi and parts of Eastern, who still favour his presidency.
From where I sit, after successive regimes have painted Raila as a monster among the mountain masses, it would take a Raila presidency, which they will not have voted for, for them to change their minds. In simpler terms, it is after the so-called monster has ruled for one term without eating them, that some will finally overcome the fear.
There is more value at this time in seeking instead to placate the more amenable former NASA zones, to bring the old base solidly back on board, before the anticipated face-off with DP Ruto for the ultimate prize. This way, if Uhuru’s support helps secure a small percentage of Mt Kenya voters, especially what they call “Mt Kenya East”, then the Raila machine can consider it a bonus in that quest.
If you ask me, the huge caravan heading to the Karen Residence from Central Kenya shouldn’t be a crisis in the Raila strategy room. If he believes he has won before without those voters, he can do it again, and have a freer hand to set policy without a demanding new “partner” in form of a huge vote base. It would be worse to engage in a wild goose chase, while neglecting his core bases, until it is too late.
From my layman’s desk, if indeed two communities have been said by none other than the President to have unfairly monopolised the presidency at the expense of the others, what would be better than both of them willingly voting themselves into the opposition, for refusing to heed the president’s call to support his preferred candidate.
Raila and the President should see the advantages in this and ignore the tantrums from the mountain!
