Friday, May 20, 2011

Kibaki legacy well inscribed in his achievements

Pascal MwandamboWith implementation of the new Constitution firmly underway, there is a general feeling, for those who care to notice, that Kenya is headed for better times.
But the hope radiating on the horizon did not just flicker one fine morning from the blue. In fact, the growing (to borrow from President Obama’s famous book title) Audacity of Hope fueling the "sense of expectancy pervading the air" can only be linked to what I believe is the Kibaki legacy. Though thus far outwardly fuzzy, Kibaki’s legacy is manifest in the massive transformation the country has undergone under his laudable watch.
It is during Kibaki’s era as President, that Kenya has experienced a visible-to-all revolution in infrastructural development and conclusion of the installation of a new Constitution that had suffered multiple stillbirths for two decades. At the same time, Vision 2030, Kenya’s development blueprint focused on turning this country into a middle income and industrialised nation in the next 20 years was conceived and activated.
President Kibaki’s legacy has led to immense infrastructural works and information communications technologies rollouts never before seen in our part of Africa. Greatly expanded civil liberties and the greatest freedoms of expression and the Press enjoyed anywhere in Africa are also essentials of the Kibaki legacy.
As Kibaki prepares to exit the presidency next year, many Kenyans must be wondering whether the momentum and development philosophy he has set in motion could not be suddenly dismantled by some hellion, eager to disprove the good works attributable directly to him and evident to both friend and foe.
Now the question that begs most urgently is how the array of our current presidential contenders either approximates or differs from President Kibaki. Let us start with his Principal Assistant, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka...
Grace and composure
Looking carefully at the man and his deputy lately, one is struck by the uncanny likeness of the personality, political persona and career thrusts and junctions of both President Kibaki and his VP. Incidentally, could it be that a man who cultivates a great legacy unconsciously perpetuates it by reaching out for alikeness through the closest ‘clone’?
At the personality/political persona level, there are uncanny coincidences between the VP and his boss, one being the pair’s enduring grace and composure. The two are unflappable, possessing tonnes of poise even under pressure. They are thoughtful, magnanimous, and slow to anger and seized of all the gravitas of hindsight, insight and foresight.
Both men have, at some point in the past, suffered taunts and jeers at the hands of more intemperate colleagues and adversaries for their calmness and temperance of spirit, sometimes erroneously branded as a sign of political cowardice and indecisiveness.
But both have a masterly grasp of the art of political prudence, patience and pertinence.
Long before he attained the Presidency, Kibaki was styled the "Gentleman of Kenya Politics" by both friend and foe — and the media. Both President and VP remain the "Wangwana of Kenya Politics", and have never had any truck with scruffy demagogues or licentious political mavericks.
This is all the more remarkable when you consider that they have been tested and tried by the vagaries of high political office and wielding power.
Both are internationally well respected. At the local level, they have at some point faced internal competition within their political community bases, which they weathered through sheer force of personality, charisma, conviction, superior word and outstanding deed.
The President as a high intellectual (economist), has had remarkable political longevity (he is the longest serving MP in the 11th Parliament) and has never lost his grassroots touch. The VP is, all rolled into one cosmopolitan package that is still in touch with the grassroots, a lawyer and one of the longest-serving lawmakers of his generation; a staunch constitutionalist; diplomat; peacemaker and statesman.
Kibaki memoir
Those eager to see a Kibaki legacy in a treatise are waiting for Godot. I think the President’s legacy is rather well inscribed in his past, present and future.
The past presents an intellectual, nationalist, economist, political reformer and tactician all rolled into one. The present, though too close and rolling by too fast testifies to the man’s do-don’t-just-say-it approach to leadership while the future is hinted to in the constellation of those that surround offices where his vision is primarily driven from.
Any telltale omissions in Kibaki’s past, present and view of the future, I am sure, will find their way into the president’s recently promised post-retirement and truly worth-waiting-for memoir.
Writer is a Commentator on social and political issues.

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