Positions between VP and Raila to harden

 

By KWENDO OPANGAPosted Saturday, March 5 2011 at 18:32

In Summary

• Damage is done and many are those in the President’s inner circle who will use these cables against Kalonzo

When WikiLeaks opened the lid on secret American diplomatic cables late last year, Washington took the trouble to warn Nairobi that Kenya’s leadership would have to reckon with some unsavoury revelations.

At the time, Nairobi appeared to think that these revelations would be limited to embarrassing exposes of corruption and the involvement of the high and mighty in them.

Little did the coalition leaders know that what they say about each other behind each other’s backs would be brought out in the open.

It is one thing for a diplomat to describe or generalise Kenya as a swamp of corruption or its Cabinet as a gallery of rogues. But it is quite a different matter for one leader’s views on the health, political orientation, intellectual acumen of another expressed in private to a diplomat to be made public.

The reason is that what politicians say about their rivals in private is usually meant to curry favour with whoever the politician is speaking with, usually by playing up his/her strengths and pouring cold water on the strengths of the rival while amplifying their weaknesses.

When this kind of talk is made public for all and sundry, the speakers do not look good. They come across as malicious gossips and devils who would wish misfortunes on their rivals in order that they may climb the greasy political pole with some ease.

In other words, a painstakingly crafted public persona is eroded and the king is rendered naked.

Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka has been publicly undressed by WikiLeaks. Where he has cultivated the image of a caring, sensitive leader of sensibilities, WikiLeaks portrays him as a sneaky conniving fellow who would cast aspersions on his President’s ability to lead on account of his health.

Most Kenyans discussed President Kibaki’s health a great deal during his first term because he took the reins of power with his leg in plaster and especially when he was hospitalised in 2003.

Surprisingly, WikiLeaks is saying that in 2007, the VP wanted Washington to prevail upon President Kibaki to step down on account of his health so that he could enhance his chances of becoming President.

Amicable relationship

This would explain the alarm and therefore alacrity with which Musyoka moved to accuse American ambassador Michael Ranneberger of seeking to drive the wedge of division in the clearly amicable relationship between him and the President. But the damage was done and many are those in the President’s inner circle who will use these cables against Musyoka.

Musyoka will also worry about the timing of the release of the latest WikiLeaks cables. The VP is having a good run as a member of government. He announced last week he was embarking on Phase II of the shuttle diplomacy aimed at persuading the UN Security Council to defer the cases preferred against six Kenyans by the International Criminal Court.

State House was happy with his performance in Phase I. His groundwork convinced the AU Heads of State Summit in Addis Ababa in January to back Kenya’s drive to be allowed to try the six Kenyans locally and not at The Hague.

Just when Musyoka seemed to be having one over his nemesis, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, WikiLeaks struck!

There is no love lost between VP and PM, but positions will harden further as a result of the cables.

The VP is quoted as telling Ranneberger that Raila was not welcome in government and was fit for the parliamentary role of Leader of the Official Opposition. This is rather like saying Raila qualifies to lead a protest movement.

Like Musyoka, President Kibaki would have liked to keep Raila out of government. But where the President says that the PM is impossible to work with, the VP is quoted as shockingly likening Raila to Venezuela’s socialist leader Hugo Chavez and claims that if he became President, Kenya’s youth would take that as a signal that a revolution has come.

How fortunes have changed! President Kibaki told the outgoing Ranneberger that in 2008 he held Eldoret North MP William Ruto and not Raila responsible for the “continuing violence in the Rift Valley”.

Ruto then was a close ally of Raila’s and the two were enemies of the President. Now Ruto is the President’s close ally and Raila’s bitterest foe.

Will diplomacy change because of WikiLeaks? I think most highly placed people in government will be guarded when talking to diplomats.

In the meantime, our politicians will hope we will forget these cables soon for they have egg on their faces.

The writer is a media consultant diplospeak@yahoo.com