On the national platform, Prof GeorgeSaitoti comes across as a self-deprecating if not an irredeemably hesitantpolitician in regards to pursing the ends of raw politics: ultimatepower.
Formerly an egghead at the University of Nairobibefore the consummate network of former President Daniel arap Moi, a prescientpolitical operative enticed him to politicsin 1983 - as a nominated MP - Prof Saitoti’s persona is singularlyburdened by an unsavoury past that had him cornered and arguably reduced to anamenable marionette. “As a contender for the presidency, Prof Saitoti, 69, facesa Herculean task of exonerating himself from his past, particularly in regardsto what is famously referred to as the Goldenberg scandal that saw Kenya losebillions of shillings in fake gold exports.
And despite the legal courtsclearing him of the scandal in July 2006, in the public court, the jury isstill out. In addition, his role during the clamour for plural democracy willbe brought to bear for he was considered hawkish in his defence of a monolithicpolitical arrangement. It will be recalled that it was immediately after hisutterances in Parliament where he ridiculed pluralists, that Kenneth Matiba andCharles Rubia were picked up by Special Branch police to suffer incarcerationthat led to the deterioration of the health of these two leading lights of democracy,” says DrRichard Bosire, senior political science and administration lecturer at UON.
By some estimates, the Goldenberg scam cost the equivalentof not less than 10 per cent of the country’s GDP. Weighing in, Prof Karuti Kanyinga of the Institute ofDevelopment Studies says Saitoti is saddled with politicalbaggage emanating from his incestuous relationship with Kanu that may turn outto be the banana skin he slips on and falls. “He (Saitoti) is not of his own making. He was brought up byKanu. He lived to practise politics during the peak of repression by the Kanuregime. He has never associated himself with political reforms and therefore will findit difficult speaking about 'change'. His Kanu past is his main referencepoint whereas some of those competing against him will be talking aboutmultiparty reforms. Also I believe that he so fearful of this past,” he says.
Human Rights Watch, an international organisationwhose brief is partly to monitor human rights violations, accused Saitotiat the time of involvement in what was famously referred to as tribal clashesthat rocked parts of the Rift Valley beginning in 1990 to the run up toelections scheduled in 1992. Understandably, Saitoti has dismissed the report.
But Internal Security minister may posses some saving grace regardinghis past relation with Kanu if Prof Godfrey Muruiki,a senior history lecturer at UON's assessment is to pass muster. “Who was not in Kanu amongst those presently contestingfor the presidency? Apart from one or two aspirants, the rest of the crowd wereall key members of Kanu. And don’t forget that your current President (MwaiKibaki) was once a stalwart of the same Kanu regime. So if it’s really about been found guilty byassociation, who can dare to throw the first stone? There are a lot of presidential candidates masquerading within that circle of aspirants as beingquintessence of Mr Perfect. But at the end, it’s up to the electorate to maketheir choice,” says Prof Muruiki.
And according to Mwandawiro Mgangha, a former legislator,Prof Saitoti is the best candidate within the PNU arrangement because the guy “is very sober and if anybody is to bring out the issue ofscams, almost all the other hopefuls have been involved in one or two scandalsas well.”
It’s apparent that despite possessing gold-gildedcurriculum vitae from the Ivory Towers, Prof Saitoti was not insulated fromacting obsequiously loyal while under the heel of Kanu. For his loyalty, he waspaid with ridicule and atrocious pain but still remained devoted topolitical machinery that manifestly never had his back.
“President Moi ridiculed him intermittently in publicforums but the guy (Saitoti) somewhat acted like he was eternally beholdento the Kenyan Leader. I remember one time when he was shuffled back to theposition of Vice President and President Moi brazenly said publicly somethingto the extent that “I've given back Prof Saitoti the seat of Vice-President,hopefully now your sufurias (pots) will be full of food”, an example of how titularhis influence, including power base was at the time,” says Dr Bosire.
A disclosure: Under Moi hardly anybody had a mind of theirown. For Kanu operated like the private business of the former Kenyan leader.Individuals who dared to cross swords with former President Moi, and lived totell the tale are far and in between. Back in the days, those who aligned theirfortunes with the now 44-year old party were more inclined to making Faustianbargains rather than seeking the alternative, martyrdom
And as he stares tothe unfolding future, his political career squats on a precarious cusp that mayvery well herald his oblivion from the big stage, unless he navigates theHerculean task of bagging thepresidency. It turns out that his Kajiado North constituents have magnanimouslyand unequivocally told him to his face that he has no other choice but to gunfor the Presidency for he is certain to receive nothing else from them, thistime round.
Worth noting is the fact that in successive electionsbeginning in 1992 when the country first held competitive party elections aftera 10-year hiatus running to 2002, the constituency has overwhelmingly voted foropposition presidential candidates, not Moi the Kanu candidate as was the normin the larger Rift Valley province at the time. Tellingly on all thoseoccasions, Prof Saitoti, then a top drawer in Moi’s derided Kanu party,seemingly defied gloom predications to win one successive election afteranother. But as is expected, divergent opinion exists regarding Saitoti’s outing as a constituency leader.
According to councillor Mwathi Marimpet Pere of OngataRongai ward, Prof Saitoti has what it takes to run a country. The civic leadersays that despite the quiet demeanor of their MP, his work at the constituencylevel is unparalleled and worthy of praise. “Prof Saitoti is apeace maker. He avoids divisive politics. When he talks of building a countrythat is cosmopolitan, he means it. Look at his constituency for example. Allthe Kenyan communities reside here.
When ethnic clashes rocked the countryrecently, after elections were held in 2007, migrants running away from areasthat had been hit by ethnic violence chose Kajiado North as their destiny ofchoice. That tells you much about the man himself. And even in the 1990’s whentribal clashes rocked large swathes of the Rift Valley province in what wasthen referred to as tribal clashes, Kajiado North remained very peaceful," he says.
“Besides, during his tenure the road network has growntenfold. When he took over the reigns of leadership here, there was only onenational secondary school, namely Oloolaiser Secondary school which was put upin 1969. Now we have several government secondary schools and in some locationsalmost two primary schools. And if you were to travel to places like Shompole,which is a very nomadic enclave, Prof Saitoti has built schools in the region,dug boreholes and opened up the area for development. He is a doer nota talker.”
On the opposite end is Njenga wa Rungee, the councillor of Ngong Town ward who saysProf Saitoti only thinks about himself and not about the residents of theconstituency. He points out, for example, that despite the relatively shortdistance between Ngong and the capital, Nairobi, residents of this cosmopolitanjoint continually face crashing endeavours in search of tap-water as residentsrely heavily on donkeys to ferry jerry cans of water to their door fronts.
“The biggest liability to Saitoti is the local peoplewhom he surrounds himself with. They don’t tell him the truth. They have lethim down because they only serve their personal interests and not the locals.See how some of the past administrators have enriched themselves over time. Andhe relies immensely on his relatives to run affairs here. Look at the chiefs,almost all are related to him by blood. It’s this form of open patronisationthat has seen him lose support on the ground with every passing day. And theonly reason he wins elections is because he is seen as a government candidate.But what Kajiado North constituency has sought all along for is a leader, not aruler. But all said and done, Prof Saitoti is a very experienced administratorand in terms of executive experience, save for President Kibaki, nobody else canhold a candle to him.”
To date the constituency, established in 1966 has had onlyfour legislators since independence - GK ole Kipury, John Keen, PhilipOdupoy and Saitoti- the latterserving the longest period.
While Uhuru, one of his erstwhile competitors is widelythought to be the presumptive heir of President Kibaki in the pollsscheduled not later that March 2013, Prof Saitoti meantime comes through asthe heir apparent to a leader unflatteringly described as “ frail anddiffident” by the Economist magazine, a weekly platform for highbrow types. In the event Uhuru’s run for the presidency is wrong-footed on account of confirmed charges by the International Criminal Court(ICC), it remains a toss-up affairwhether the Chairman of PNU would benefitmajorly from the expected spin-off.
Routinely, ethnic faultlines rise above the surface in therun-up to a general election. This internecine phenomenon has on the extreme, black-eyed East Africa’s biggest economyas the challenge of managingintra-ethnic strife in parts of the country always inundates its sensibilities.Sometimes pushing the country almost down the precipice like happened in early2008.
Which makes a legitimate case that the country’s politicalheart pounds to an ethnic beat, emboldening close political watchers toopine that were Uhuru to inadvertentlygive the presidential race a miss, Saitoti would naturally receive thebacking of previous Uhuru backers.But Prof Saitoti may face a self-made hurdle. Since hinginghis career to a political bandwagon, Saitoti has remained deafeningly mumregarding his Kikuyu ancestral roots instead opting to court the amorphous‘cosmopolitan’ ethnic tag. As he maneuvers to run for the presidency it’sanyone’s guess if the self-imposed sobriquet will act as an asset or aliability.
It’s quite early to tell whether Prof Saitoti is a seriouscontender for the top seat, says Prof Muriuki, nevertheless, hiscandidature faces hard times ahead if the status quo remains, he says. “It will be very difficult for him to win because he willnot have the numbers because if you look at Raila Odinga for instance, hisancestral Luo community is behind him, if you look at Kalonzo Musyoka, theKamba communy's vote will most likely lean towards him and to some extent,were Musalia Mudavadi to run, largely his Luhyia ethnic group will cast votesfor him. The same trend can be said of William Ruto and his Kalenjin community.Prof Saitoti lacks this kind of support. And it’s a fact of Kenyan life thatour politics is largely ethnically based.”
According to Dr Bosire, “It is most likely that theKikuyu elite who are currently fighting on Uhuru Kenyatta’s corner willtransfer their political loyalty to Prof Saitoti. Essentially this is in spite ofProf Saitoti, denial of his Kikuyu roots. What makes his candidature appealingamongst the Kikuyu elite, compared to the other Presidential candidates drawnfrom the Mt Kenya region is the fact that he has deep pockets. He can be reliedupon to run a serious presidential campaign. And if he were to ascend to StateHouse, he is likely to protect and further extend the elites interests. Thiscannot be said of say Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka for he lacks he necessarymonetary pedigree that would endear him to the political elite drawn fromwithin the larger Kikuyu community.”
Pervasively, Saitoti is thought to be one of thewealthiest Kenyans today who answers to the enviable moniker of Mr New Money,though the source of his wealth, including its real worth, remains a fixation forspeculative discussion, up till now. Justin Muturi, a confidant of Uhuru says, “Which sackis this that one is going to get ripe votes from? One must work hard to win thehearts and minds of the electorate countrywide. And in any event I’m not awarethat Prof Saitoti has approached Uhuru in regards to discussing possiblebacking should Uhuru be red-carded from the race. There has been zerodiscussion. In any case, politics is very fluid and one cannot imagine thatwere Uhuru, for example not to run, that they would automatically bebeneficiaries of the votes Uhuru was to receive.
My advice to Prof Saitoti andanybody else for that matter is to work diligently by talking to the peopleinstead of paying lip service. They should forget completely what commentatorsare writing about. Politics is not like mathematics where you follow aparticular formula. If Prof Saitoti is serious about his presidential bid, lethim show his seriousness by transversing the length and breadth of thiscountry. For now, what I know is that Uhuru’s name will be on the ballot. Thosethinking otherwise are daydreaming.”
According to Prof Munene, the Kajiado North MP has enoughin his hands; leave alone the issue of addressing his ethnic extraction. “Representing a cosmopolitan constituency like KajiadoNorth, South of Nairobi, and being seen to be cosmopolitan is a plus. It showsan ability to rise above parochial considerations. The problem for Prof.Saitoti, however, is not in being or not being cosmopolitan. It is that hisidentity appears to be a political issue and he has not been able to addressthat.” says Prof Munene. Adding, “His likely support bases are shaky. He islikely to be everyone’s second choice and so when the first choices cancel eachother, he might be left standing to become number one.”
In the current Parliament, only PresidentKibaki has served uninterruptedly for a longer period than Saitoti. But thelatter’s lengthy tenurehood, if expected, has failed to translate into avote-grabbing machine, on a national scale. Indeed even when it boils down tothe prosaic exercise of name recognition, Saitoti’s brand conjures theimage of a reluctant leader or simply a begrudging carpet bagger.
Perhaps it may have escaped the attention of theubiquitous political commentators that Prof Saitoti’s current position isimmensely powerful. The provincial administration answers to him, including theformal internal security network. Besides Prime Minister RailaOdinga and the former Finance minister Uhuru, no other politician comes closeto being defined as powerful and influential.
In addition, an occurrence in recent times left alingering perception that Saitoti's political star maybe headed northwards.Setting precedent, President Kibaki contradicted his consort Lucy in public overmatters concerning Prof Saitoti in February 2009. A repeat has never beenwitnessed regarding another politician.
Coincidentally, the relationship and similaritiesbetween President Kibaki and his Minister for Internal Security and ProvincialAdministration run deep. Both count Mangu High School as their former High School.They both profess to the Catholic Faith. On the political front, both weredealt a bad hand by Moi, suffering humiliation as VPs.
To his credit, hisadmirers say that Prof Saitoti is no whiner, pointing out that while other MPshabitually complain about the size of their constituencies, Kajiado North,they say is geographically bigger than all the constituencies in Nairobi, combined.True? With hindsight, it’s enticing to think of the proverbialstatement: "If a man loves the labour of any trade apart from anyquestion of success or fame, the gods have called him,” said Robert LouisStevenson, an American writer. Does Prof Saitoti fit the bill? Time will tellbut for now, ignoring Prof Saitoti’s candidature as the apparent presidentialnominee of President Kibaki may look farfetched but it could easily happen. Whether he rides the roost of victory is another thing all together.Uhuru oncewalked on the same path.
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