Too many suitors for Kibaki’s endorsement

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By Juma Kwayera

A year before the last elections, President Kibaki looked deserted and headed to lose the bid for a second term.

Unlike in a conventional government where presidents serving their last term are lame duck, forces that shape Kenyan politics are gravitating around Kibaki, thanks to an asymmetrical governing coalition that has not faced an organised opposition, save for occasional grumbling.

With all parties in Government, save for one, it is difficult for aspirants in the increasingly crowdedpresidential race to sell their agenda anchored on alternative policy agenda in the classical sense government-versus-opposition system.

Asked why Kibaki is a hit with presidential aspirants, Assistant Minister for Public Works Mwangi Kiunjuri says the absence of an effective opposition had deprived politics the necessary competitionand impetus that shapes discourse in the countdown to an election.

Instead Kiunjuri, leader of Grand National Union (GNU) party, says: "All political parties are part of the coalition government. It becomes impossible to criticise the same government when you are a part of it. The best avenue for anybody to emerge as clear frontrunner is to be outside government and criticise it from there."

At present, only Martha Karua, who hopes to run on Narc-Kenya ticket, speaks from outside Government after quitting the PNU coalition, which her party belonged when she was serving as Justice minister.

Having finally resigned to co-existing with his nemesis, Prime Minister Raila Odinga after several aborted attempts to kick him and the Orange Democratic Movement — which enjoyed numerical advantage in Parliament — out of Government, Kibaki’s characteristic indifference places him in unusual company of elective positions aspirants.

Save for aspirants who have declared interest in the presidency on ODM and Narc-Kenya tickets, the others mill around the President in the hope of securing his endorsement. The jostling for his support has sucked in even rank-outsiders — former Rarieda MP and Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju and serving Foreign Minister Moses Wetang’ula, who has expressed interest on Ford Kenya ticket and Internal Security Minister George Saitoti. Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, who vied for the seat in his ODM-K party, surprised his supporters last week when he opened an office in London for the president’s PNU.

Courting voters

During his frequent visits to Mt Kenya, Kibaki’s political base — incidentally, also Uhuru’s — Kalonzo has often courted the electorate in the region by selling the impression that he ‘rescued’ Kibaki at a time when his tenure looked over. He hopes Kibaki to return the favour. Kanu Secretary-General Nick Salat says incumbency plays a major role in shaping the destiny of potential candidates even in thetwilight years of a presidency.

Drawing on his experience when he was an MP in the last Kanu regime, Salat says: "The office of the president carries weight up to the time a serving president hands over power. Kibaki still has a constituency, which all the aspirants — including those opposed to him — covet. Ours is still a presidency that is beholden to certain groups and it is for this reason that Kibaki is attracting a lot of interest."

In what is becoming familiar as Kibaki meets people around the country on his farewell tours, the scramble for his support manifested during a recent trip to Rift Valley, where he commissioned theconstruction of the Eldoret-Ziwa-Kachibora and Kachibora-Moi’s Bridge roads that will cost Sh1.4 billion.

MPs from the region took turns to court him to support Eldoret North MP William Ruto to vie for the presidency.

However, never one to publicly take a stand on a sensitive political issue, Kibaki deftly batted back the ball in the MPs’s court when told them to align themselves with the ad hoc G7 political outfit.

Salat, a former Bomet MP, says the president’s disinterest in Rift Valley is informed by the prevailing reality: Regionalism and ethnicity-driven politics have ruled Rift Valley and Mt Kenya out of the running for the top seat in the 2012 presidential poll.

"Ruto is in a rush. He knows we (referring to the Kalenjin) just left the seat just the other day. President Kibaki is intelligent enough to know that some of the candidates for the seat just want to keep afloat. They want to remain relevant. Why would he then support a cause he knows is going nowhere," argues Salat.