Welcome to a seemingly difficult, political year

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By KWENDO OPANGA
Posted  Saturday, December 31  2011 at  15:52

IN SUMMARY

• The ruling by ICC judges, the campaigns, and an economy that doesn’t offer any hope of recovery could shape 2012

What does 2012 hold in store for us? This promises to be an increasingly difficult and political year.

I believe we are likely to witness momentous events on the political front that will shape the landscape and determine the careers and direction of many a politician and party in the land.

And this starts in the first half of this month when the International Criminal Court (ICC) makes known whether Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, Mr William Ruto, Mr Henry Kosgey, Mr Francis Muthaura, Mr Hussein Ali and Mr Joshua Sang should go to full trial for alleged crimes against humanity.

Despite my earlier reservations about how the court’s Chief Prosecutor, Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo, went about the prosecution, my gut feeling, being a lay person, is that the cases will go to full trial for some, if not the entire sextet.

If this is what Judge Ekaterina Trendafilova will deliver any time this month, the sextet and the country will never be the same again.

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The politics of the land will revolve around the fates of those arraigned and politicians and parties will take note and align their strategies accordingly.

Cover of religion

In the lead-up to the appearance of the sextet before Judge Trendafilova & Co last year, the tension in the land was palpable as the cover of religion was used to drum up ethnic support for the six and to vilify those perceived to have landed them at The Hague.

I am not ruling out a repeat performance.

Then there is the General Election in general and the presidential poll in particular.

If the next General Election is held in August or December, one thing remains constant: we will bid farewell to President Emilio Stanley Mwai Kibaki and welcome our fourth president since independence.

But that is if the election is held this year. There is a pending matter on this front. Kilome MP John Harun Mwau not only held that the Supreme Court has no legal authority to declare the date for the next General Election, but that the tenure of MPs expires in January 2013.

Greatest interest

Why Mr Mwau is not a lawyer I do not know, but if there is a politician who takes the greatest interest in the law and who understands or interrogates the minutest detail of it, that person has to be Mr Mwau.

Expect him to push the case for a General Election in 2013 to the bitter end.

The General Election itself will tax the people, parties, candidates and the electoral commission to the utmost limits. How many offices shall we be voting people into?

We will be voting for a president, governor, senator, member of parliament, women’s representatives, name it.

There will be far too many voices screaming for our eyes and ears and we shall literally be inundated with information and disinformation wherever we look, turn and go. Little wonder there is already a clamour for the General Election to be staggered.

Amid the political cacophony and inevitable acrimony, we will have to get on with the business of earning a living and living and, believe you me; the cost of living may not get any easier or cheaper.

It is now an established fact that every election year our economy goes into reverse gear.

And then consider this patently explosive mix: an economy already reeling from the devastating effects of a weak shilling; prices of fuel that have gone through the roof and prices of basic commodities that are headed for the stratosphere.We spend four years growing the economy and then, in the fifth, we lose it all mainly because of the heightened political temperatures courtesy of the language of discourse, the wait-and-see-attitude of investors and entrepreneurs and uncertainty and anxiety that grips us.

Cost of borrowing

No, we are not done. Add onto that the prohibitive cost of borrowing; inability to save and, therefore, inability to invest and, therefore, inability to create wealth and jobs; massive unemployment especially among the young people and the wave of strikes that began last year and which are certain to continue.

But, good people, every cloud has a silver lining and in this tough picture I have painted above may lie the key to identifying the kind of leader the country needs.

The man or woman who wants any elective position must present his or her plan for scrutiny and interrogation.

But, over and above anything else, that man or woman must make clear his or her plan for keeping Kenya united, peaceful and on track to economic prosperity.

Kwendo Opanga is a media consultant opanga@diplomateastafrica.com