Ruto, Uhuru should cite ideas, not age

 

By KWENDO OPANGAPosted Saturday, January 22 2011 at 16:44

In Summary

• Agenda: The two should tie their clamour for youthful leadership to specific agenda regarding crime, jobs, education, prosperity

I have absolutely no problem with a young person — a forty-something, according to Messrs William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta — becoming the next president of Kenya.

I was delighted when Bill Clinton was elected US President at 44 in 1992. I reacted the same way when in 1997 Tony Blair at 44 became the UK’s youngest Prime Minister.

When Barack Obama came along at 47 in 2008, it was not his age that delighted me. His colour did for obvious reasons. Current UK Prime Minister David Cameron came in at 43 last May.

However, age alone cannot be the reason for my interest in the campaigns and tenures of Clinton, Blair, Obama and Cameron. It is their politics that interests me; conservative for Cameron and progressive for the others.

Again, I believe that their ages alone could not have handed them the White House and No 10 Downing Street. For Blair, he had to transform the Labour Party, which had been out of power for 18 years, into an electable force and, more importantly, a government-in-waiting.

Clinton’s Democrats had been out of power for 12 years and the young Governor from Arkansas had to transform the party into a winning machine, even if, as in the case of Blair, the electorate had grown tired of conservative governments.

The odds against Obama were even greater. But it was his gospel of change, like Clinton’s and Blair’s before him, organisation and, above all, his progressive programmes against John McCain’s conservative fare that won him the White House.

I do not remember Clinton, Blair, Obama or Cameron telling the electorate he was young where his opponent was older and therefore deserved to be elected on account of his age. It was the media, observers and pundits who raised the age factor.

As freshmen, Clinton won against an older George W.H. Bush; Blair against John Major; Obama against McCain; and, Cameron against Gordon Brown. Ruto and Uhuru need not remind us that we need young people to lead us.

When Clinton was seeking a second term against a much older Bob Dole and was asked about his opponent’s age, he answered that it was not Bob Dole’s age that concerned him, but the age of Bob Dole’s ideas.

What is the age of Ruto’s and Uhuru’s ideas? Wrong question! What are Uhuru’s ideas? What are Ruto’s ideas? In other words, Ruto and Uhuru should tie their clamour for youthful leadership to certain specific and unique ideas regarding crime, jobs, education, food security and prosperity.

It is the programmes the two propose to implement when in leadership that will differentiate them from the old guard. It is these ideas that will define their freshness of thought, brilliance of analysis and insight into creating a prosperous Kenya.

These ideas are best expressed in the programmes of action and policy position papers of parties on varied issues. Uhuru in 2002 chaired the now moribund Kanu.

In 2007 he collapsed Kanu into an amorphous amalgam called Party of National Unity (PNU). Last week he moved into the amoeba-like PNU Alliance.

In 2002, Ruto was a minister of a dictatorial Kanu. In 2007 he was in the popular but undemocratic Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

In 2011, he is set to move to another party, possibly the United Democratic Movement (UDM) founded by party-hopping Cyrus Jirongo.

One’s membership of a party reflects one’s thinking. A party jumping politician cannot therefore claim to have a consistent position on issues.

What’s Ruto’s position on the question of justice for the IDPs? His myriad of conflicting positions on the ICC, for example, points to the confusion in his young mind.

What is Uhuru’s position on parties? In 2003 he said coalitions should be formed after elections to form governments and not before for purposes of taking power.

Well he has since taken Kanu into PNU and has now gone into PNU Alliance. Young Uhuru is no different from the old guard President Kibaki he serves and old guard PM Raila Odinga he despises.

Old Raila formed ODM as the irresistible force to take him to State House. Octogenarian Kibaki formed PNU as the immovable force to stop ODM. Young Uhuru and younger Ruto have the Lord Lugard-era KKK battleship to bar Raila from State House.

With hatred of Raila the weapon of choice in KKK’s arsenal, youthful Uhuru and Ruto have confirmed they are old predators in the constitutionally new battleground that is Kenya’s politics.

Opanga is a media consultant diplospeak@yahoo.com