Why Moi, Raila meeting sparked talk of reunion

By JUMA KWAYERA

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Former ruling party Kanu faces uncertain future after a group allied to chairman Uhuru Kenyatta disclosed it does not plan to be represented in the hearing of anapplication that temporarily stopped membership recruitment.

The case filed by Secretary General Nick Salat has effectively stalled activities in the party, pending determination of the application, which, depending on its outcome, could ruin the party.

Even as Salat told The Standard on Sunday that Kanu was re-branding in preparation for next year’s presidential elections, Organising Secretary Justin Muturi spoke of how the gulf between factions allied to Uhuru on the one hand and former Baringo Central MP Gideon Moi on the other had widened.

"There is a court order against membership recruitment. Even if the order is lifted, we are due for deregistration (by the Registrar of Political Parties). As things stand, Uhuru is not interested in the case. He will not be represented when it comes up for hearing," says Muturi, chairman of the Centre for Multi-party Democracy.

Although he is the bona fide chairman of Kanu, Uhuru has been pitching for alliances with individuals from other political parties. The uncertainty in the party has been a major cause of concern, precipitating talk of a search for an alternative home in the event the party that ruled the country between 1963 and 2002 is deregistered.

It is against this backdrop that when former President Daniel Moi, who handed over the mantle of party leadership to Uhuru after he retired in 2002, attended PM Raila Odinga’s son’s wedding recently, it kicked off talk of a possible alliance between the two.

Reaching out

On Friday, during a prize-giving day at Kabianga High School, Moi denied ever reaching out to Raila politically.

"I received an invitation from the PM to attend his son’s wedding just like other guests and it doesn’t mean by going to the wedding, I will go anywhere," he said, of his political inclination.

However, both sides have denied talk of an imminent 2012 election deal. An aide of the PM who declined to speak on record denied the two were working on a deal that would prop the PM’s support in the region, whittled by a rebellion by Kalenjin MPs allied to former minister William Ruto.

The PM’s aide said: "The PM and Moi are friends. If there was anything, I would know."

While that may be so, Salat talked of the former President’s dismay with the palpable political situation, especially ethnic relations in the wake of the 2008 post-election violence.

"Politics is not about sitting at the table and trading off deals. When you share a meal, it opens up to other things. Mzee supports a unitary State and often says 2008 provided lessons for anyone seeking leadership in the country. He holds the opinion that when you are competing for leadership, the rivalry should not get to levels that break up the country," Salat told The Standard on Sunday.

A bitterly contested presidential poll outcome in 2007 stoked unprecedented ethnic and political hostility that exploded into fighting in which more than 1,000 people died and more than half-a-million were displaced. With just a year to the next polls, thousands of displaced families are yet to be resettled, creating a possible flashpoint that Salat says the retired president wants to forestall.

However, the thawing in relations between Moi and Raila is unprecedented, more so after the two bitterly disagreed on Mau Forest Complex evictions and were in opposing sides in the referendum campaigns.

So what for the eight years looked like a ‘war of attrition’ between Kanu and ODM leaderships is rapidly transforming into a working relationship, amid denials in either camp that a common front is in the offing.

Attempts to re-engineer the party have often come up against a brick wall; the party’s constitution vests much power in the chairman (Uhuru).

The Finance minister, then Leader of Official Opposition in Parliament, angered his party when he rallied behind President Kibaki in the 2007 polls.

He also faces accusations of bringing the party to the brink of deregistration for persistently rejectingcalls to convene the National Executive Council and National Delegates Conference to elect a new office.

Instead, he is linked to the formation of a new party or a probable crossover to PNU Alliance, in whose activities he has been active.

His is also part of a G7 political outfit that is preparing to field a single presidential candidate in next year’s polls. When Moi hosted Chief Justice Willy Mutunga at his residence in Kabarnet Gardens in Nairobi, there was no doubt the former President was breaking barriers with his former bitter critics. Mutunga and Raila were detained at the early stages of the clamour for political pluralism during Moi’s regime.

Political radar

With Kanu in apparent doldrums and fast-fading from the political radar as the country enters the homestretch of the next elections, there have been significant activities in Kenya’s oldest party.

While Salat maintains Kanu will field a presidential candidate in the next polls, he in the same breadth says the party is open to an arrangement that will forestall recurrence of the 2007 poll crisis.

He says: "During my short time in politics, I have come to learn nothing is impossible. In Kanu, thebody is willing, but the heart is reluctant."

There is no doubt the former ruling party is desperate to regain its lost glory but intra-party circumstances have made it impossible for the outfit to regain its lustre since the change of guard at the top in 2003. Neither Salat nor Muturi would answer in the affirmative whether Uhuru will be the party’s flag-bearer.

The party has significantly lost relevance.

Even if it escapes deregistration, the deepening ambivalence makes the party amenable to alliances and in Rift Valley where Kanu is still active, there has been a tilt away from Uhuru’s leadership.

Not surprisingly, the PM has brought closer Kalenjin leaders that still have allegiance to the former President.

Agriculture Minister Sally Kosgei, a Raila ally in Rift Valley was Cabinet Secretary and Head of Public Service during Moi’s reign, while recently promoted Higher Education Minister Margaret Kamar enjoys a rapport with the former President. Mr Musa Sirma, East African Community Affairs minister and Assistant minister Magerer Lang’at are known to still hold Moi in high esteem.

Moi and Raila share a trait that occasionally brings them together when it matters most: Their disposition to forgiveness.

So, talk of the former President and the Prime Minister warming up to each other is likely to remain a talking point till all political parties go through primaries.