Sunday, June 17, 2012

Why would Prof Saitoti be Moi’s choice for president?


Why would Prof Saitoti be Moi’s choice for president?

  SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTEMAILRATING

By KWENDO OPANGA
Posted  Saturday, June 16  2012 at  18:16
Wonders will never cease; they will always increase.
In 2002, then President Moi was clear and unequivocal that his Vice-President, Prof George Saitoti, was not presidential material.
Therefore, his preferred heir was a political greenhorn named Uhuru Kenyatta.
In 2012, Mr Moi, almost 10 years in retirement, reveals that he has been quietly helping Prof Saitoti’s campaign to grab the huge Rift Valley vote on his way to becoming Kenya’s fourth president.
Had Prof Saitoti changed sufficiently to persuade Mr Moi he could lead?
What could he have been doing differently that alerted the elder statesman to the leadership qualities he could not see when he was vice-president?
Or it is Mr Moi who has undergone a metamorphosis that opened his eyes to Prof Saitoti’s leadership acumen?
I am certain that under a dominant, all-seeing and omnipresent Mr Moi, Prof Saitoti was always ready to play the general who would never eclipse the field marshal.
Share This Story
Share 
Under President Mwai Kibaki, Prof Saitoti was able to work, relax and express himself much more freely.
If that be the reason why Mr Moi changed his opinion of him, then it would follow that he must have watched Mr Kenyatta over the same period and found him wanting.
But Mr Moi endorsed Mr Kenyatta for leadership at Mr Njenga Karume’s burial the other day.
Of course, Mr Moi clarified that he did not endorse Mr Kenyatta for the country’s leadership, but rather the central Kenya communities.
Could that be the moment he signalled his change of heart about Mr Kenyatta and downgraded him altogether?
Perhaps, but could it also be a case of de mortuis nil nisi bonum? That translates as “of the dead nothing but good?”
I believe Mr Moi when he says he was campaigning for Prof Saitoti. I did not believe him when he dismissed him as devoid of presidential timbre.
Mr Moi has not changed. Prof Saitoti did not change. It is the politics that has changed; it is the circumstances leading to the coming General Election that are different from those obtaining in 2002.
Mr Moi’s interest remains constant. What is that interest? It is power. It is about who gets it and what that means for the political class and country.
In 2002, Mr Moi chose inexperience and youth (Mr Kenyatta) over experience (his Vice-President). Why was Mr Moi settling for experience (Prof Saitoti) in 2012?
In 2000, an inexperienced incoming George Bush the younger had Dick Cheney, who served in his father’s and Ronald Reagan’s administrations, as his vice-president.
Similarly Barack Obama settled for Washington insider Joe Biden as his Number Two.
It is why it was believed then, as now, that an incoming Kenyatta, beholden as he would have been to Mr Moi, would have included loyalists of the outgoing Moi regime in his Cabinet to ensure his benefactor’s word held sway in the new administration.
The rise of Mr Kenyatta would have locked out Mr Raila Odinga, a man who Mr Moi has never been comfortable with. Mr Moi had his comeuppance in the 2002 General Election.
Mr Kenyatta was beaten by Mr Mwai Kibaki who Mr Odinga backed. In 2007, the politics had changed. Mr Moi shifted gears.
He backed Mr Kibaki against Mr Odinga. He won a pyrrhic victory; his man won but there was nothing he could do to stop the William Ruto-fronted Odinga juggernaut sweeping the Rift Valley.
In 2012, Mr Odinga and Mr Ruto have fallen out. But Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta face criminal charges at The Hague.
Mr Kibaki is exiting the arena and Mr Odinga is the initial favourite to succeed him, but the post-election chaos arose because of the two men.
Share This Story
Share 
Mr Moi is looking for a peace-maker. He is looking for a safe pair of hands. But, more importantly, he is looking to mend fences.
His Rift Valley home province was the epicentre of the post-election madness and mayhem but he has watched emerge tribal groupings fronted by some who want to lead the country.
But why would Prof Saitoti be Mr Moi’s choice? Remember I wrote here that although Mr Moi had devastatingly damaged Prof Saitoti, the professor never, at any time, held it against his former boss. I also wrote that Prof Saitoti never burnt bridges with his old friends.
And, I wrote, he maintained the networks he quietly created from the late 80s and that all he needed to do was to re-activate them for a presidential bid.
I am not saying Mr Moi was listening; I am saying the professor of politics knew the professor of mathematics all along.
Kwendo Opanga is a media consultant opanga@diplomateastafrica.com

No comments:

Post a Comment