VP
pulls stronger punches at rivals in latest strategy
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Updated 6 hrs 38 mins
ago
By Athman Amran
Vice-President Kalonzo
Musyoka has shifted to a combative style ahead of elections. He has decided to
throw punch for punch and even deliver the first against rivals.
The ‘new-look’ Kalonzo
says he no longer wants to retain the image of a timid politician.
He has also aggressively started his campaign
strategy of promising to fight corruption, delivering economic transformation,
creating jobs, and ensuring food security through irrigation.
The ‘new’ Kalonzo emerged a week after Water Minister Charity
Ngilu hinted she may be vying for president and after Prime Minister Raila
Odinga insisted the next election would be a fight between reformists and
non-reformists.
Ngilu had played the reformist card when she hinted she could be
in the race for president.
“This country still yearns for real leadership and reformers.
Previous regimes must give way for reformers to take this country forward,”
Ngilu said during the memorial service of her husband Michael Ngilu at her
Ithookwe home in Kitui Central constituency.
During the 22nd Saba Saba Day on July 7, Kalonzo vowed he would be
a different politician. He alleged his political rivals claiming to be
reformists were hypocrites.
The VP hit out at Ngilu even before she officially enters the
presidential race by alluding unnamed people were trying to use her to compete
with him for the Kamba vote.
“My opponents are angry that so far from south Eastern, I have no
opponent for president. So they are looking for one. Mujuwe mutawekewa mtu (be
aware that a rival would be planted in Kamba land to compete me),” Kalonzo
said.
His comments were targeted at Ms Ngilu, whose party, Narc, is
working with Raila’s ODM. Kalonzo claimed the rival who would be planted
would end up being “someone else’s running mate” or would be given some
position in Government.
Home turf
The VP has been working to brighten his chances at home. Last
Sunday, he welcomed former Cabinet Minister Francis Nyenze to the Wiper
Democratic Movement.
“Francis has the capacity to work with me,”
Kalonzo said during a luncheon at Nyenze’s Karen house in Nairobi.
Another punch Kalonzo has decided to unleash against his political
opponents is the ‘integrity’ card.
The VP apparently wants to use alleged scandals associated with
his opponents’ offices, to claim some of the contenders are not “clean” people
and lack “integrity”.
“You can’t be a reformer when you are
involved in the Triton saga and stealing maize for the poor. You remember when
one packet of maize meal was going for Sh120 instead of Sh80 and people were
going hungry. I tell you time will come when we will expose them. Time for
reckoning is coming,” Kalonzo said after attending a wedding ceremony at the Lavington
United Church in Nairobi last weekend.
Kibwezi MP Philip Kaloki, however, says the VP is merely
demonstrating what he has been doing all along quietly.
“These are campaigns and in competition, you must have a cutting
edge over your rivals. The VP is campaigning on the platform of genuine fight
against corruption. He has a vision for the country,” Kaloki said.
Kalonzo’s spokesman Kaplich Barsito says the VP’s style of
politics has changed.
“Sometimes it pains him when some people present a false picture
of him on one hand and a positive picture of themselves on the other,” Kaplich
said.
Kalonzo claimed his reform path began in 2002 when he protested
the way Kanu was nominating its presidential candidate.
“I said sitingiziki (I won’t be shaken). Some of us had to stand
and say the way Kanu was picking presidential candidates was not right,” the VP
said. Kalonzo also claimed he stood out against the Kilifi Draft, which was a
corruption of the Bomas Draft Constitution.
The VP said some politicians were misrepresenting him on reforms
and development issues. His rivals claim he is an opportunist and always
undecided on key national issues.
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