Tuesday, January 10, 2012

If they plan to beat Raila, then they are going about it in a strange way



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By Macharia Gaitho 
Posted  Monday, January 9  2012 at  18:47
I just can’t figure out whether it’s a brilliant political manoeuvre not immediately apparent to those of us outside the loop, or just an illustration of the anti-Raila brigade scampering around like headless chicken.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga took time out from domestic stresses with a trip to India – whether in pursuit of pleasure, business or medical attention remains fodder for gossip – and it appears he could stay away as long as he wished because the alliance ranged against him did not need any help to commit collective hara-kiri.
Standing together, Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP William Ruto – forget the rest of the minnows who only make up the numbers in the so-called G7 – make a formidable force capable of stopping in its tracks Mr Odinga’s long march to State House.
From the moves they have been making in the last few weeks, it is apparent that the troika have never digested the famous saying by American independence hero George Washington: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately”.
Of late, we have seen the three, as well as Internal Security minister George Saitoti who prefers to operate on the fringes of the G7, all going to aggressively secure their individual bases while hardly bothering to pay the previous lip-service to the collective effort.
Prof Saitoti has been busy cementing his hold on the ‘ruling’ PNU and assuring supporters that he will be on the ballot come the presidential polls.
Ditto Mr Kenyatta, who after wandering around looking for a seat from which to launch his bid, has walked backwards to bring out from the graveyard the Kanu cockerel he ditched on hitching his fortunes to inheriting President Kibaki’s ethnic base.
Mr Ruto is similarly focused on convincing his own ethnic bulwark that their interests will only be safeguarded if he is president.
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Then we have VP Musyoka, who also insists his name will be on the ballot and reinforced his intentions by re-naming his branch of ODM into a more personal Wiper Democratic Movement –a name that is proof positive of a dire need for an effective brand manager.
The pollsters have been telling us for quite a while that Mr Odinga leads the pack, but has been steadily losing ground to fall below the 50 per cent mark that would guarantee victory at the first ballot.
Collectively, the other candidates command a bigger share of the poll than Mr Odinga. It stands to reason, therefore, that the way to beat Mr Odinga is to present a unified front.
Kenyan politics being what it is, a unified front is not just a matter of presenting a single candidate.
A strategy often talked about is presenting multiple challengers, each of whom would secure his ethnic or regional bastion for the purpose of denying the presumed front-runner the required threshold.
This would then force a run-off between the top two candidates, the general assumption being that leading the pack would be Mr Odinga leaving the G7 to rally their combined forces behind the runner-up.
Indeed, the soundness of such a strategy is bolstered by some polls giving various permutations by which Mr Odinga and his running mate could be defeated by the G7 presidential and vice-presidential pair.
At the moment it does not appear that the G7 group is working towards such a scheme. From their activities and utterances, it is every man for himself.
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It is understandable that the top dogs in the Kenya Police Force be nervous about the prospects of an inspector-general from outside the service. They simply are not equipped to comprehend such an eventuality.
I can appreciate some of the arguments they make against a clueless civilian becoming chief of police. However, Commissioner Mathew Iteere, CID boss Ndegwa Muhoro and deputy police spokesman Charles Owino surely commit a grave offence against the oath of office when they take to the soapbox to encourage a mutiny within the ranks in case a civilian is appointed police boss.
The criminal charges for mutiny are well spelt out.
mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com

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