In fact, Michael Mugwanga, a political commentator in the Star, opined that the nomination of Karua not only warmed up the mountain plus many regions about Raila but alsochanged the geopolitics and thrust the ticket above their rivals, unexpectedly, and could win a lot of votes.
Going by their records, Raila and Karua have earned good names in undoing the androcentric and misogynist set up of our politics and in promoting good governance and slay graft
Predictably, there is every likelihood of Raila-Karua ticket effect up-titrating gender parity index towards the two-thirds gender balance.
Raila and Karua are unique because they have offered outstanding service to this country in the past, which has given them a huge recognition. They have been described as reformists and transformational leaders who cannot be bought, sold or corrupted..
I do liken both to American author Ellen G. White, who once said, “The greatest want of the world is the want of men and women who will not be bought or sold, men and women who in their innermost souls are true and honest… who do not fear to call sin by its right name… whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole … who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.”
The duo has been about acts of servant-led leadership as defenders of human rights and democracy on pro-bono basis without expecting anything in return.
Second, Raila’s picking of Martha is historic in the tradition of Kenya that has incessantly reified a patriarchal dominance, culturally, over a long period
In terms of Kenya’s top leadership, Raila has projected a hopeful and progressive outlook. The naming of Karua as running mate shows how Raila yearns for a 50-50 shared leadership between women and men in to decimate any androcentrism in our society.
Third, even though the phrase “birds of the same feather flock together” is attributed to William Turner who lived almost 47 decades ago, this phrase appears not lost in the politics or sociometrics of our time.
Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition provides a paradigm of “birds of a feather flocking together” with its zero tolerance to corruption agenda.
We have another political alignment of UDA of Dp William Ruto and Rigathi Gachagua, which can also be depicted as birds of the same feather. Surprisingly, they do not seem to be vocal against corruption because they have been accused of corruption. UDA is thus more vocal on bottom-up economic model
Kenya is facing unemployment and economic challenges owing to massive corruption not because of lack of economic models such as bottom-up model, Black-Scholes options pricing model, Cobb-Douglas model of production, the AD-AS (aggregate demand-aggregate supply) model, Heckscher-Ohlin model of international trade, mathematical models and simulation models, among many others.
Kenyans must be cautious about possible dangers of aspirants with sweet words and fake models for enhancing Kenya's economy, when their greatest claim to fame is the alleged ill-gotten wealth.
We have a lot of resources and taxpayers money but on an annual basis, the amount we lose to corruption is approximately Sh800 billion. It is, therefore, massive corruption that is affecting Kenya’s economy not the model.
When Karua was asked in an interview soon after the Azimio manifesto launch where money will come from to fund the plans, she said if corruption loopholes are sealed off, wastage is curbed and the tax base widened, then Kenya can fund the budget.
She emphasized about skill and good judgement in the use of resources. In the Indian culture, one of the vows made by the famous Mahatma Gandhi was to ‘hold on to non-possession’ i.e. aparigraha in Sanskrit. This terminology affirms Karua’s concept of prudential efficiency. There is always need for our leaders to exercise discretion, frugality and strict carefulness in the use of money.
While economic models we tend to pontificate and declare in our manifestos may be correct, they can turn to be the opium of the pontificators to an extent that they can fail to see corruption as cancer that is ravaging this country.
The narrative of Angela Merkel is an important motif to our situation. She provided good leadership in Germany like the Iron lady Margaret Thatcher did to the UK.
Karua has earned the tittle of the ‘Iron Lady’ after Thatcher, who helped in bringing about neo-liberal ideology to the world, while Angela was known to strike the right tone to statecraft.
Angela was famous and skilled at playing what people termed as the four Ds — Diplomacy, Diligence, Determination and Duty. She made relentless duty to bring people together, the Azimio style that Raila is striving to do today.
She said, "I seek cooperation rather than confrontation".
In addition, Angela says that we cannot play alone. This advisory ought to inform and effect the Raila-Karua context of leadership.
Prof Awino is a university lecturer
