Just like his father, Raila’s lack of tact could be his bane

  SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTEMAILRATING

By PHILIP OCHIENG
Posted  Saturday, March 17  2012 at  17:54

As we know from our political science course 101 at every liberal university, politics is two-pronged. There is politics as tactics and there is politics as strategy.

Tactics deals with the day-to-day manoeuvring that a would-be leader may deem necessary to maximise his or her chances of reaching the pinnacle of power.

For its part, strategy refers to the long-term socio-moral conviction of a party and its leader or leaders. For instance, what do they seek to do with power should they get hold of it?

Do they or do they not intend to drastically transform the social fabric in terms of tenure, appropriation, exchange, distribution and thought. If so, in what manner?

Strategy, then, is just another word for political ideology. However, although ideology may be a necessary factor in a politician’s quest for power, it is by no means a sufficient one.

Tactics – which includes also the ability to persuade and to make and keep as many friends as possible – is often, ultimately, the decisive factor.

Tactics refers to all the sleights-of-hand – like the judicious momentary alliances (that the German labour movement used to call Bundnispolitik) – with which to charm one’s way to the top.

Moreover, tactics refers to the need to weigh your words with utmost care to avoid angering your real and potential allies into walking out on you and thus ruining your chances.

Share This Story

Share 

In strategic thinking, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was among the most remarkable leaders in Kenya’s political history – far-sighted, intellectually honest, morally candid, personally courageous.

Yet, in tactical terms, Jaramogi was almost hopeless. Indeed, the candour – because it was often unmeasured – was what proved his bane.

At just about every stage in his quest for power, Jaramogi ruined all his chances by frustrating his allies and enraging his foes through ill-considered and embarrassing statements, including the angriest and most untimely outbursts.

In short, Jaramogi never knew a single thing about how to garner and conserve support on the way to power.

Destroy opportunity

In 1981, for instance – with an outburst about Jomo Kenyatta having been a land grabber – he enraged all his potential supporters in Central Province and thus enabled all his enemies in the Moi system to gang up to destroy every opportunity he had of making a come-back into the system to resume his presidential quest.

Hitherto, Raila Amollo – his son – has shown much greater awareness of this political need.

During the last decade, he has seemed to shed the devil-may-care image that he cut as a central leader of what James Orengo would later call “the Second Liberation” — the gung-ho and swashbuckling that characterised Amollo’s activities during the anti-Moi rebellion. 

Since Nyayo ouster, Agwambo (“the Miracle-Worker”) has seemed more calculating, slier and smoother.

He has appeared, in a word, as a tactician on a par with Napoleon Bonaparte and Vladimir Lenin. Yet, as Wordsworth quips in poetry, “the son is father of the man”. And so the inevitable gene of impatience occasionally seems to get the better of our prime minister.

Hardly a year before the presidential election, Mr Odinga climbs onto a dais to utter certain incredibly tactless words about Mr William Ruto and Mr Uhuru Kenyatta – words which are certain to annihilate every ounce of sympathy which he has painstakingly cultivated among the vote-crucial Kalenjin and Kikuyu communities.

Of course, I totally agreed with what Jaramogi said of Mzee Kenyatta and what Agwambo says of Mr Ruto and the Kenyatta scion. For the truth is unassailable.

I say merely that, on both occasions, the words were ruinously thoughtless and inopportune. The difference is that I am not in any popularity race in Central Province and the Rift Valley.

Therefore, I can afford to say it, while Mr Odinga just cannot. The question is: where are the PM’s publicity advisers? Isn’t it time he dealt effectively with the Miguna Migunas extant in his office?

ochiengotani@gmail.com