A Digital Essay by Onyango Oloo, Secretary for Ideology,
Social Democratic Party of Kenya
The most important piece of political news in the world at
the beginning of October 2012 was the re-election of Hugo Chavez as President
of Venezuela for the 2013-2019 period. He vanquished Henrique Capriles Radonski
his right wing opponent from the Roundtable of
Democratic Unity coalition (MUD). It will be his third term in office under the
1999 constitution, and is his fourth election as Venezuelan president since
1998.
Voter turnout was an
astounding 81%-the highest rate of participation in the history of Venezuela-and
Chavez won 55.11%, to Capriles’ 44.27.The socialist president also won a
majority in 22 of Venezuela’s 24 regional states, including the capital
district and, by 0.5%, in Miranda, where Capriles is governor. The opposition
candidate won in the Andean states of Merida and Tachira.
Not bad for a leader pilloried in the West as a “Communist
tyrant.”
Owen Jones, certainly no socialist, wrote in the October 8,
2012 edition of Britain’s Independent newspaper:
Is all the Western media coverage that portrays him as a
dictator by chance related to his politics? Here in Venezuela, the truth is
very clear to see.
If much of the Western media is to believed, I write this
column from a country brutalized by an absurd tinpot caudillo, Hugo Chavez, who
routinely jails any journalist or politician with the temerity to speak out
against his tyranny.
According to Toby Young, Venezuela is ruled by a “Marxist
tyrant” and a “Communist dictator”. Chavez’s defeated opponent in Sunday’s
presidential elections, Henrique Capriles, was portrayed by contrast as an
inspiring, dynamic democrat determined to end Venezuela’s failed socialist
experiment and open the country to much-needed foreign investment.The reality of Venezuela could not be more distant from the
coverage, but the damage is done: even many on the left regard Chavez as beyond
the pale. Those who challenge the narrative are dismissed as “useful idiots”,
following in the footsteps of the likes of Beatrice and Sidney Webb who, in the
1930s, lauded Stalin’s Russia, oblivious to the real horrors.Venezuela is a funny sort of “dictatorship”. The private
media enjoys a 90 per cent audience share and routinely pump out vitriolic
anti-Chavez propaganda, pro-opposition areas are plastered with billboards
featuring Capriles’ smiling face, and jubilant anti-Chavez rallies are a
regular event across the country.Venezuelans went to the polls on Sunday for the 15th time
since Hugo Chavez was first elected in 1999: all of those previous elections
were judged as free by international observers, including ex-US President Jimmy
Carter, who described the country’s election process as “the best in the
world”. When Chavez lost a constitutional referendum in 2007, he accepted the
result. Before his massive registration drives, many poor people could not
vote. In stark contrast to most Western democracies, over 80 per cent of
Venezuelans turned out to vote in Sunday’s presidential elections.Even opponents of Chavez told me that he is the first
Venezuelan president to care about the poor. Since his landslide victory in
1998, extreme poverty has dropped from nearly a quarter to 8.6 per cent last
year; unemployment has halved; and GDP per capita has more than doubled. Rather
than ruining the economy – as his critics allege – oil exports have surged from
$14.4bn to $60bn in 2011, providing revenue to spend on Chavez’s ambitious
social programmes, the so-called “missions”.
Do we have a Hugo Chavez among the several Presidential
aspirants in Kenya?
That was a rhetorical question.
It is just but a few months before our own hugely anticipated
elections here in Kenya, the first to be held under the auspices of the
constitution promulgated in August 2010.
We will be electing a raft of
representatives in six categories at both the national and county levels.
Needless to say, the Presidency still holds sway.
Ironically, our current constitution whittled away most of
the former draconian powers of the executive.
But there is still a wide disconnect
between the democratic aspirations of our constitution and the lust for
political power and economic dominance
among and across the factions and fractions of our neo-colonial comprador bourgeoisie who are determined to
maintain control of what is increasingly taking on the character of a bastardized Narco-State in its reconfigured form both at the centre and the
county levels.
Already many fat cats-several of them known drug dealers, war
lords and unconvicted fraudsters and plunderers of the economy-are lining
themselves up to be president, governors, senators, members of
parliament and county representatives of one kind or the other.
More than 2007, the 2013 elections are likely to witness an
even more garish and rapacious attempt by the Kenyan comprador bourgeoisie to
harness their financial clout, access to state offices and institutions as well
as the multi-layered ethno-class privileges to buttress their sway over the
millions of impoverished Kenyans.
From ongoing indications, these elite forces
are already stoking the flames and flares of clannism, creed, ethnicity and
regionalism to carve for themselves a niche in the mosaic of personality-based
fiefdoms across the country.
All of this is unfolding in sharp contrast to the spirit and
letter of the constitution which defines Kenya as a multi-party democracy and
underscores the sovereignty of the people of Kenya.
The leading presidential
candidates in their boisterous and often raucous rallies and public
pronunciamentoes are blithely trashing
Kenya’s political pluralism as they declare either that the race to State is a “two
horse race” or underscore of cobbling
together a putrid tribal alliance for the express parochial purpose to
block individual politicians from ascending to certain high offices.
Against this back drop, the print and electronic media with
the usual gaggle of political soothsayers and hyper ventilating pundits with
whom they enjoy a symbiotic co-existence continue to trumpet the much
ballyhooed “Kibaki Succession” talk-misguided in the sense that Kenya is not a
monarchy where a leader is “inherited” or “succeeded”.
The question still remains, who will be President of Kenya
in 2013?
But before we proceed further we must ask what appears on the surface, a
very silly question:
Will we have elections in the first place, in 2013?
Some of us who live in and around Nairobi may have been
privy to a document that has been doing the rounds within certain progressive
circles.
That document mulls over four possible scenarios:
Scenario One, the
Harmony scenario is
where preparations for
a free and
fair election offers Kenyans an
opportunity to elect a credible government led by a President who does not carry the baggage of
our regrettable past. Such a great leader will unify and secure the nation,
transform the economy and create jobs and
opportunities while facilitating social
justice for the
majority. In one sentence, lead
Kenyans to build
a great, prosperous
and proud nation.
This scenario is unlikely because the ingredients for this result
are nowhere in place today. This election is going to be a rerun of the
incomplete 2007 election under different circumstances and may be with
different faces on the ballot.
Scenario Two, the
Limping Scenario, is
where Kenyans use
the next election
to settle for what Dr. Archbishop
David Gitari calls the lesser of the evil on offer in the
election given our
political culture and
realities. This means that Kenyans
shall go for a government steered by a president who shall Not actually break the
back of impunity, corruption and tribalism but a government that shall be
benign
in its greed and criminal tendencies and that will possibly
allow institutions to perform and deliver justice.
Scenario Three, the Impunity Scenario is where those who
fear that accountability will end their
privilege and see them punished for their crimes against the people Kenya
will gang together,
mobilize numbers and
get a corrupt
and vicious government elected to secure their status of
enjoying the fruits of impunity.
Scenario Four, the Military scenario is where the legion of
impunity does not trust that they can insulate themselves from accountability
by rigging themselves into power alone because under the new constitution the
personalization of power is deterred. Their agenda is how to suspend the
constitution by having a military takeover.
In this scenario, the impunity plotters who control the intelligence,financial and security
sectors as well
as the information
channels (including CCK?)
in Kenya in
toto will sponsor
the escalation of
violence and general
insecurity across the nation blaming it on Al Shabab and other disgraced
actors.
By the beginning of 2013 the country will be under a huge
cloud of violence and terrorist-spawned insecurity that will be used as a
pretext for the declaration of the state of emergency. MRC,
Al Shabab and
Mungiki will be
blamed for this ugly
scenario. In the end the military will “arrest” Kibaki from State House
and detain him at the Langata Barracks
for being responsible for the instability and insecurity and general despondence in
the country. The constitution will be suspended and the
military will assure investors and Kenyans that security shall be restored and
elections to return the country to civilian rule shall be after one year. The
beneficiaries of this
scenario are The
Hague Four, the
hundreds of middle and lower level PEV perpetrators who
do not want to see the day when they are finally
brought to justice
and President Kibaki
himself. The current
National Assembly will be co-opted into this machination because nearly
2/3 of the members of the National
Assembly stand for impunity and will cherish the continued
patronage of the
merchants of impunity.
Those who are for the Limping and Harmony scenarios in parliament are in
the minority.
When you look
at the stakes
involved in this
election, the first
under the new constitution,
you realize that the stakes cannot be higher. People in the impunity legion have
everything to lose if the elections were conducted freely and fairly and in
time. The ICC trials are no longer a farfetched
narrative it was in 2010 now looking
at the fate
that Charles Taylor
and Lubanga have
met under the mechanisms
of international justice. Those 50 years Taylor received brought the reality of
criminal accountability home to the Kenyan nation. It is anticipated that the
Ocampo 4 will not be at The Hague in September to take the plea. This means that
warrants of arrest will be issued.
That will demand
that the impunity
plotters will apply
all resources towards
having one of
their own elected
to ensure that the Warrants of
Arrest are not executed. It is very unlikely that they are
going to support
one of the
others from the
so called anti-reform
platoon because that
is no assurance
whatsoever that they
will be insulated
from prosecution and
accountability given the state system established under the new constitution. It is do or die. In fact when
you see that
the people who stand to
lose most if
a free and
fair election were
to be held
currently control the
security apparatus, the
financial, intelligence and
information power, then it becomes clear why they are not going to relinquish power and lose all that
advantage. In other words because Kenyans
cannot guarantee them
“safe exit”, they
will then secure
their safety and freedom by
retaining these four
instruments of power
and use them
to silence resistance and throw
out the current
constitutional order which
is a great inconvenience to
them. Given the
situation in Sudan,
Somalia and the
DRC generally, I am not sure that
the international community cannot trade off the freedom and democracy of our nation to buy
“Security and stability” from the securocrats if
they were to
take over power
through a bloodless
and stage
managed coup. And for me the role of China in Kenya may
prove decisive when matters get to this stage. Unfortunately, and paradoxically
in the current state of things it the
PNU wing which seems to be in love with China where as the ODM side which has people formerly associated
with the left seems to lean towards the West
more now. When I see how China has played the decisive role of propping the
decadent ZANU-PF regime
in Zimbabwe including
supplying weapons, tractors,
oil and other
essential amenities through
Angola, I get convinced that China
is going to play a decisive role in Kenya’s democratic evolution.
With our civil society not willing to steward the nation or
with most civil society organizations infiltrated
and rendered weak
through self censorship
or limited by
its donor project
character; the religious
leadership delegitimized, the democracy
movement dispersed to atoms and Kenyans hopelessly tied to their little ethnic and tribal tethers, the
impunity scenario looks like the luckiest we are going to get.
However if you were to look at
the stakes involved in this elections, the military
scenario is what
the architects of
darkness would want
for the nation. They would have every motivation and
determination to push this policy to the end.
The author of the document excerpted above is a well known Kenyan
civil society activist AND political party leader. Since he has not authorized
me to name him publicly, I will not do so.
Are the four scenarios likely or possible?
As I let that thought linger and percolate in what I hope
is by now, a slightly disturbed mind, I
would want to zoom backwards into the European mid 20th Century past
and talk of a dead man who once lived in the country called Bulgaria.
That man was named
Georgi Dimitrov.
Who was he and why is he relevant to Kenyans in the year
2012?
He was a communist who later became his country’s head of
state after many years of living as an exile.
That is not why some of us remember him and definitely not
the reason I am bringing up his name in this essay. Dimitrov’s main
contribution to the world is found in his reflections on how progressive forces
could combat the main threat to the world in those days:
Here is an excerpt from an extensive report he gave in 1935,
two years after the Germans had ELECTED Adolf Hitler as Prime Minister of
Germany and four years before the same Hitler in cahoots with fellow fascist Benito
Mussolini plunged Europe and the world into a bloody imperialist war:
Was the victory of fascism inevitable in Germany? No, the
German working class could have prevented it. But in order to do so, it should have achieved a united
anti-fascist proletarian front, and forced the Social-Democratic leaders to
discontinue their campaign against the Communists and to accept the repeated
proposals of the Communist Party for united action against fascism. When fascism was on the offensive and the bourgeois-democratic
liberties were being progressively abolished by the bourgeoisie, it should not
have contented itself with the verbal resolutions of the Social-Democrats, but
should have replied by a genuine mass struggle, which would have made the fulfilment
of the fascist plans of the German bourgeoisie more difficult. It should not have allowed the prohibition of the League of
Red Front Fighters by the government of Braun and Severing 6), and should have
established fighting contact between the League and the Reichsbanner 7), with
its nearly one million members, and should have compelled Braun and Severing to
arm both these organizations in order to resist and smash the fascist bands. It should have compelled the Social-Democratic leaders who
headed the Prussian government to adopt measures of defence against fascism,
arrest the fascist leaders, close down their press, confiscate their material
resources and the resources of the capitalists who were financing the fascist
movement, dissolve the fascist organizations, deprive them of their weapons,
and so forth. Furthermore, it should have secured the re-establishment and
extension of all forms of social assistance and the introduction of a
moratorium and crisis benefits for the peasants -- who were being ruined under
the impact of crisis -- by taxing the banks and the trusts, in this way winning
the support of the working peasants. It was the fault of the Social-Democrats
of Germany that this was not done, and that is why fascism was able to triumph. Was it inevitable that the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy
should have triumphed in Spain, a country where the forces of proletarian
revolt are so advantageously combined with a peasant war? The Spanish Socialists were in the government from the first
days of the revolution. Did they establish fighting contact between the working
class organizations of every political opinion, including the Communists and
the Anarchists, and did they weld the working class into a united trade union
organization? Did they demand the confiscation of all lands of the landlords,
the church and the monasteries in favor of the peasants in order to win over
the latter to the side of the revolution? Did they attempt to fight for
national self-determination for the Catalonians and the Basques, and for the
liberation of Morocco? Did they purge the army of monarchist and fascist
elements and prepare it for passing over to the side of the workers and
peasants? Did they dissolve the Civil Guard, so detested by the people, the
executioner of every movement of the people? Did they strike at the fascist
party of Gil Robles and at the might of the Catholic church? No, they did none
of these things. They rejected the frequent proposals of the Communists for
united action against the offensive of the bourgeois-landlord reaction and
fascism; they passed election laws which enabled the reactionaries to gain a
majority in the Cortes (parliament), laws which penalized the popular movement,
laws under which the heroic miners of Asturias are now being tried. They had
peasants who were fighting for land shot by the Civil Guard, and so on. This is the way in which the Social-Democrats, by
disorganizing and splitting the ranks of the working class, cleared the path to
power for fascism in Germany, Austria and Spain. Comrades, fascism also attained power for the reason that
the proletariat found itself isolated from its natural allies. Fascism attained
power because it was able to win over large masses of the peasantry, owing to
the fact that the Social-Democrats in the name of the working class pursued
what was in fact an anti-peasant policy. The peasant saw in power a number of
Social-Democratic governments, which in his eyes were an embodiment of the
power of the working class; but not one of them put an end to peasant want,
none of them gave land to the peasantry. In Germany, the Social-Democrats did
not touch the landlords; they combated the strikes of the farm laborers, with
the result that long before Hitler came to power the farm laborers of Germany
were deserting the reformist trade unions and in the majority of cases were
going over to the Stahlhelm and to the National Socialists. Fascism also attained power for the reason that it was able
to penetrate into the ranks of the youth, whereas the Social-Democrats diverted
the working class youth from the class struggle, while the revolutionary
proletariat did not develop the necessary educational work among the youth and
did not pay enough attention to the struggle for its specific interests and
demands. Fascism grasped the very acute need of the youth for militant
activity, and enticed a considerable section of the youth into its fighting
detachments. The new generation of young men and women has not experienced the
horrors of war. They have felt the full weight of the economic crisis,
unemployment and the disintegration of bourgeois democracy. But, seeing no
prospects for the future, large sections of the youth proved to be particularly
receptive to fascist demagogy, which depicted for them an alluring future
should fascism succeed. In this connection, we cannot avoid referring also to a
number of mistakes made by the Communist Parties, mistakes that hampered our
struggle against fascism. In our ranks there was an impermissible underestimation of
the fascist danger, a tendency which to this day has not everywhere been
overcome. A case in point is the opinion formerly to be met with in our Parties
that "Germany is not Italy," meaning that fascism may have succeeded
in Italy, but that its success in Germany was out of the question, because the
latter is an industrially and culturally highly developed country, with forty
years of traditions of the working-class movement, in which fascism was impossible.
Or the kind of opinion which is to be met with nowadays, to the effect that in
countries of "classical" bourgeois democracy the soil for fascism
does not exist. Such opinions have served and may serve to relax vigilance
towards the fascist danger, and to render the mobilization of the proletariat
in the struggle against fascism more difficult. One might also cite quite a few instances where Communists
were taken unawares by the fascist coup. Remember Bulgaria, where the
leadership of our Party, took up a "neutral," but in fact
opportunist, position with regard to the coup d'état of June 9, 1923; Poland,
where in May 1926 the leadership of the Communist Party, making a wrong
estimate of the motive forces of the Polish revolution, did not realize the
fascist nature of Pilsudski's coup, and trailed in the rear of events; Finland,
where our Party based itself on a false conception of slow and gradual
fascization and overlooked the fascist coup which was being prepared by the
leading group of the bourgeoisie and which took the Party and the working class
unawares. When National Socialism had already become a menacing mass
movement in Germany, there were comrades who regarded the Bruening government
as already a government of fascist dictatorship, and who boastfully declared:
"If Hitler's Third Reich ever comes about, it will be six feet
underground, and above it will be the victorious power of the workers." Our comrades in Germany for a long time failed to fully
reckon with the wounded national sentiments and the indignation of the masses
against the Versailles Treaty; they treated as of little account the waverings
of the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie; they were late in drawing up their
program of social and national emancipation, and when they did put it forward
they were unable to adapt it to the concrete demands and to the level of the
masses. They were even unable to popularize it widely among the masses. In a number of countries, the necessary development of a
mass fight against fascism was replaced by barren debates on the nature of
fascism "in general" and by a narrow sectarian attitude in
formulating and solving the immediate political tasks of the Party. Comrades, it is not simply because we want to dig up the
past that we speak of the causes of the victory of fascism, that we point to
the historical responsibility of the Social Democrats for the defeat of the
working class, and that we also point out our own mistakes in the fight against
fascism. We are not historians divorced from living reality; we, active
fighters of the working class, are obliged to answer the question that is
tormenting millions of workers: Can the victory of fascism be prevented, and
how? And we reply to these millions of workers: Yes, comrades, the road to
fascism can be blocked. It is quite possible. It depends on ourselves-on the
workers, the peasants and all working people. Whether the victory of fascism can be prevented depends
first and foremost on the militant activity of the working class itself, on
whether its forces are welded into a single militant army combating the
offensive of capitalism and fascism. By establishing its fighting unity, the
proletariat would paralyze the influence of fascism over the peasantry, the
urban petty bourgeoisie, the youth and the intelligentsia, and would be able to
neutralize one section of them and win over the other section. Second, it depends on the existence of a strong
revolutionary party, correctly leading the struggle of the working people
against fascism. A party which systematically calls on the workers to retreat
in the face of fascism and permits the fascist bourgeoisie to strengthen its
positions is doomed to lead the workers to defeat. Third, it depends on a correct policy of the working class
towards the peasantry and the petty-bourgeois masses of the towns. These masses
must be taken as they are, and not as we should like to have them. It is in the
process of the struggle that they will overcome their doubts and waverings. It
is only by a patient attitude towards their inevitable waverings, it is only by
the political help of the proletariat, that they will be able to rise to a
higher level of revolutionary consciousness and activity. Fourth, it depends on the vigilance and timely action of the
revolutionary proletariat. The latter must not allow fascism to take it
unawares, it must not surrender the initiative to fascism, but must inflict
decisive blows on it before it can gather its forces, it must not allow fascism
to consolidate its position, it must repel fascism wherever and whenever it
rears its head, it must not allow fascism to gain new positions. This is what
the French proletariat is so successfully trying to do.
Excerpts from The
Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle
of the Working Class against Fascism, Main Report delivered by Georgi
Dimitrov
at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist
International, August 2, 1935.
Without delving too much into the details with the
accompanying Marxist-Leninist jargon, simply put, Dimitrov was saying that the
best time to fight fascism is BEFORE it comes to power and that the people to
lead this onslaught are the most radical and progressive political forces in
society.
21st Century Kenya is certainly NOT mid-20th
Century Europe.
However, the urgent need to consolidate the democratic gains
achieved in Kenya through struggle over the last thirty years cannot be
overemphasized.
It is important that the forces of social justice,
democracy, sustainable development, gender equality, youth empowerment and
constitutionalism maintain the upswing, the moment which picked up especially
after the defeat of the Moi-KANU Uhuru Project in 2002 and the patriotic
victory following the promulgation of the Kenyan Constitution in August 2010.
Kenyans cannot afford to revert to the status quo ante-the
period of arbitrary arrests and detentions without trial; kangaroo trials; pork
barrel tribal politics; state instigated violence; grand corruption; grand
larceny; official misogyny, anti-youth bias; religious bigotry and other forms
of backward and reactionary policies at the national, county, constituency,
municipal and ward levels.
We can choose to fret, whine, quake and shake about the
chilling possibility of a nefarious putschist plot or we can opt for the more
sensible option:
Maintain eternal vigilance and redouble our efforts in
steadfastly implementing our new constitutional order.
If the matters raised in the document I cited at the
beginning of this essay are credible, then we should collectively heave a sigh
of thankful relief for as they say, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
That being said, I suggest we put these baleful scenarios in
the parking lot for a few minutes while we go back to the original question:
Who will be the President of Kenya in 2013?
Well, I can tell you straight away who will NOT be
President:
Bifwoli Wakoli.Mutava Musyimi. Ole Kiyiapi.Kingwa Kamencu.Eugene
Wamalwa. Raphael Tuju. Charity Ngilu. Moses Wetangula.Peter Kenneth.Kalonzo
Musyoka.Cyrus Jirongo.
Rule all of them out.
At least three of them have already ruled themselves out.
That leaves Martha Karua, Raila Odinga, Uhuru Kenyatta,
William Ruto and Musalia Mudavadi.
One of them is going to be the President of Kenya.
Two of them have a modicum of reform credentials.
Four of them have major mainstream connections and
underpinnings.
All of them come from Big Tribe backgrounds.
If we were to go by depth of pocket, then the leading
candidates would be Uhuru Kenyatta, followed by Raila Odinga, then William Ruto
with Martha and Mudavadi bringing up the rear.
If we were to go by ethnic constituencies, then Uhuru
Kenyatta will be leading the pack in terms of single regional blocs while Raila
would wipe out that lead if Gikuyuphobia played a part in voting patterns.
If we were to go by reformist credentials then it would be
Raila and Martha at the frontlines with Ms. Karua’s gender being both a
positive (there is a huge chunk of female voters) and a negative (patriarchy, sexism
and misogyny is systemically embedded in Kenyans that often even women opt to
vote for male candidates even when there are strong credible women on the
ballot).
If we were to factor in the ICC process, then Ruto and Uhuru
are automatically KAPUT.
Mudavadi’s apparent “strength”-his colourless Boy Next Door
image- is also his main drawback:
He lacks a political spine.
When I was growing up in Mombasa as a teenager in the mid to
late seventies, I was quite the Holy Joe who started teaching Sunday school at
the age of nine. I didn’t curse. I did not smoke Sportsman, SM or Embassy cigarettes
like my cousin Evans two years my senior who started sucking on the cancer
sticks at the age of eight.
I was so painfully shy that it took me FOUR years (13
to 17) to tell my upstairs neighbour Angelina Chepchumba in Tononoka that I had
an undying crush on her upon which she humiliated me further by laughing
derisively in my face informing me, by the way, that that she saw me as a YOUNGER
brother (she was one year my junior as a matter of fact) and in any case she
went out with MEN rather than schoolboys.
I noticed that I was not alone. All
the goody two shoe guys like David (as I was then known) did NOT get the girl.
Instead that hot chick went for the nastiest, skankiest toilet mouth in the
mtaa. He was often that mean looking matatu conductor; the boy from down
the street who sold marijuana to your live in job seeking uncle who monopolized the bed you were hoping to inherit once you hit
15; he was what the African-Americans
call the “bad boy” and Jamaicans refer to as the "rude boy”.
In the contemporary Kenyan political scene, Mudavadi is the
choir boy, the altar boy while Uhuru is the “bad boy”, Ruto is the “rude boy”,
Raila is the “bhangi peddler” who can hook you up with those expensive text
books and leaked papers you need to swot on to pass your “O” levels. Even
Martha Karua can be the “rude girl” the “freaky zonked out bitch” because after
all, she may know one or two things about covering up stridently for a sneaky electoral thief who swears themselves into office after sunset in a shady
suburban back yard.
Guess who will get busy with the pretty girl on the third
landing of that dark stair case after she has lied to her mom that she needs to
buy that maths exercise book?
Not your guy Musalia.
He has to wait for his parents to fix him with a wife for
life in an arranged set up with some family friends.
Too bland to rule.
No oomph.
No kaboom boom.
In Kenya you need that malevolent kick, that subversive edge.
Where is the sleaze?
Where is the hate speech?
Where are the clandes?
The nyumba ndogos?
The Chips Fungas?
Some mischievous wag whispered to me with a wink and a
twinkle that MM, the former Mean Machine
rugger player is no playa but has a Mgikuyu Gachungwa stashed away in Kitale,
but THAT is of course a “malicious rumour” manufactured by Musalia’s jealous, vengeful
political rivals.
Where is the political assassination?
The rigged out opponents or post election violent carnage?
Musalia can only cite in his defence that whiff of
Goldenberg and wisp of cemetery odour.
That’s it!
On a more serious note though, what in fact, does Musalia
Mudavadi stand for?
I once read somewhere that when you are trying to brand
yourself, you need to create a CATEGORY WHERE YOU ARE THE ONLY MEMBER in order
to distinguish yourself from the others.
You need to be a Ferrari or a Jaguar standing apart from all
those gazillions of Subaru’s, Toyotas,
Hondas and Hyundais; you are the Samsung Tab 11 looking down on the Tecnos,
Jibambes and Mulika Mwizis; you are the
David Rudisha who can be distinguished from the scrawny and famished scared petty thief dashing
into the kichochoro around the junction with the stolen sufuria; you are the
chick rocking the original Bvlgari or Elizabeth Arden scent above the stench of
fake cheap knock offs peddled surreptitiously in Eastliegh or Shauri Moyo.
To what extent are Uhuru, Raila, Ruto and Karua brand names?
And do these brands appeal to the mass market or the haute
couture designer set?
The pollsters glibly tell us that it is neck and neck when it comes
to Raila and Uhuru.
The son of Jomo is banking on a multi-tribal elite alliance
to help him play the ABR (Anybody But Raila) card to regain access to the palace
he played in as a real kamwana.
The son of Jaramogi on the other hand wants to cash in on
his family’s claims on the reform agenda mantle.
But is the reform agenda synonymous with Henry Kosgey?
Is Dalmas Otieno the face of progressive democratic
transformation in Kenya?
Is Amos Wako the harbinger of the judiciary’s overhaul?
Where are the Chelagat Mutais, the Karimi Nduthus, the Tirop
Kiturs, Onyango Oloos and the Mwandawiro Mghangas of yesteryear?
Are they ALL in ODM?
If the presidential contest is going to be a wrestling tag
match pitting the forces of reform against the forces of impunity then Raila
Odinga will need three or four extra hands in his corner.
ODM as presently constituted, is simply TOO NARROW, TOO
PAROCHIAL to qualify as the VANGUARD of the progressive Reform camp.
Many of the ODM MPs-especially the ones from Nyanza- rigged
themselves to parliament and do not have a chance of being re-elected on ANY
party ticket.
Some of the functionaries at the Office of the Prime Minister
have corruption scandals swirling around them like a bunch of house flies on a
rural urchin’s smelly buttocks after a trip to the pit latrine.
A handful of
the operatives in lobby groups like FORA are well-meaning technocrats WITHOUT A
CLUE how to carry out POLITICAL MOBILIZATION among the ordinary wananchi.
That is why ODM should climb down from its high horse of
thinking it can go it alone and start negotiating with those small parties like
SDP that Raila Amolo Odinga dismisses as “donkeys”.
Talk of “farasi” and “punda”
is to put it bluntly, UNCONSTITUTIONAL because the Chapter Two, Section 2 of
the Constitution states that:
“The Republic of Kenya shall be a multi-party democratic
State founded on the national values and principles of governance referred to
in Article 10.”
The multi-party character of our emerging national
democratic state is the surest safeguard and bulwark against the forces of
impunity, reaction and “watermelonishness”.
To summarize:
- ODM should convene a
Special 2 Day Retreat by November 15, 2012 bringing together progressive
political parties big and small, to chart together a Common Reform Agenda
for the 2013 Elections. Among the parties I have in mind are ODM, SDP,
NARC-Kenya, NARC, PPK, CCM, New Democrats, Saba Saba Asili and many others.
The other objective of this retreat is to create a Broad Alliance for
Reforms.
- Once this alliance is
formed, it should then seek ways of working with the progressive sections
of civil society including a broad range of NGOs, CBOs, trade unions, women,
faith groups, professional bodies and the like.
- I have 15 additional
points but why should I allow my brain to be picked for free in a digital
essay when I can negotiate a decent fee to craft a comprehensive position
paper paid for by ODM and all these parties I am talking about?
In all seriousness though, if ODM can seriously consider
some of the proposals I am putting forth and implement the same, then I am
convinced Raila Odinga will be the next President of Kenya.
If they ignore voices from the wilderness such as Onyango
Oloo's then Kenyans can brace themselves for the possibility of Uhuru Kenyatta
being sworn in as President of Kenya from a well known Dutch city.
Onyango Oloo
Nairobi, Kenya
Friday, October 12, 2012
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