2012 poll intrigues cast shadow on AFC

By Robin Toskin
A leopard is not just a leopard especially if it is AFC Leopards. It holds the political ambitions and aspirations of a community. It is for this reason that the botched AFC Leopards elections, the second in a month, have generated more heat than substance.
FeverPitch can reveal today how the oldest Kenyan Premier League club has been held hostage, thanks to vicious shadow boxing by political elites with the 2012 General Election being the bigger picture.
Elites with political ambitions, according to a school of thought, are said to fear the loss of the club’s chairmanship would undermine the moral authority for them to seek higher offices, including the State House. For if you cannot bring home a grasshopper how else will you deliver a buffalo steak.

AFC Leopards voters at Railways Club, Nairobi, on Sunday. [PHOTOS: STAFFORD ONDEGO]

Inherently thus, the 13-time Kenyan champions has drawn its life, culture and support from Kenya’s second largest community numbering Luhya 5.33 million.
Three contestants — Julius Ochiel, Alex Ole Magelo and Winstone Kituyi — were locked in a tight battle to win the chairmanship, each said to have the backing of either Party of Nation Unity (PNU) and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
Yesterday, a day after Leopards’ poll aborted at the Railways Club, Ikolomani MP Bonnie Khalwale, who attended the poll, warned a senior cabinet minister to keep off Ingwe.
"If there is a minister who has the locus standi to indulge in football club matters then it should be the Minister of Sports, Hon Paul Otuoma. Maybe in the spirit of collective responsibility Otuoma should tell us if he sent that senior politician to meddle in the affairs of Leopards," Khalwale said.
The leadership of AFC Leopards is not a small matter. The club was formed in 1964 when several football clubs from the Luhya community merged to form Abaluhya Football Club. Khalwale made no secret of the displeasure with the jostling for the powerful chairman’s position.
STEP BACKWARDS
"In the eighties, Leopards had a very good leader from another community but he took a step backwards to let a Luhya, who own the club, to offer leadership. But what we are seeing now are people from outside the Leopards community trying to interfere with the club because of Presidential ambitions," Khalwale said.
In a sharp rejoinder, Ole Magelo, a nominated councillor in Nairobi and who is said to be backed by a senior PNU figure dismissed Khalwale’s view saying he has the backing of most Luhya MPs.
"Why didn’t Khalwale say that when we helped Leopards to return to the Kenyan Premier League after they were relegated? Where was he in 2008 when Leopards was crying for help? Was that to do with 2012? What I know is that Khalwale, Eugene Wamalwa and Cyrus Jirongo are the ones distablising this club for political reasons. They should leave Prof Saitoti (George) out of this," Ole Magelo said.