Mukhisa Kituyi. Photo/FILE
By MUKHISA KITUYI
Posted Saturday, December 15 2012 at 19:12
Posted Saturday, December 15 2012 at 19:12
IN SUMMARY
- Urgent matter: As Jubilee Alliance seeks to put its train on the rail, it has to deal quickly with this vexing issue
Kenya’s two main coalitions, Cord and Jubilee Alliance, are in the run-up to identifying their presidential candidates.
While to some it may look like charting new waters, the matter of coalitions is a reality we have endured since the return of multiparty politics in the early nineties. How parties have handled coming together has had a major impact on their returns from a general election.
Looking at that recent history may offer instructive lessons for the current challenges.
The triumph of Kanu over the opposition in 1992 and 1997 was a direct result of the opposition failure to see a collective interest in unity.
While teams seeking power look to emphasise what they hold in common, the opposition of the 1990s emphasised what divided them. Attempts at rallying the opposition parties together were always derailed by disputes on procedure and resistance from the beneficiaries of ethnic candidates. Instead of accommodation, they drifted apart. The rest is history.
But it is the experiment of 2002 which offers the most instructive lessons for us today on how to engineer a pre-election coalition.
Although much has been made of a Raila declaration of “Kibaki Tosha” as what invented the opposition coalition under one candidate, the truth is that the most fundamental steps to a common candidate were already made by the members and leaders of the Democratic Party, Ford Kenya and SDP under the umbrella of National Alliance of Kenya (NAK) before the disintegration of Kanu, and the resultant arrival of the Rainbow Coalition.
With substantial assistance from Rolf Meier, the former Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs in South Africa, the opposition learnt a few key lessons on goals and processes for contesting power.
One, that when diverse groups want to form a team, they first clearly separate between what they have in common and what divides them. They then deliberately emphasise what holds them together and play down their differences; attempting to defer dealing with them as much as possible and even then away from public view.
Secondly, unity is built on an understanding that a combined effort stands a much better chance of achieving individual goals than the solo efforts of the individual parties.
That in a country with no large inclusive parties, like Kenya, self-interest should compel parties to align with others even as key players may originate from different ideological and intellectual groundings for purposes of contesting power.
This is a product of, and partly responsible for a society that is not evolving policy platforms as the basis for voter preference in contested elections. It is this particular malady of Kenya politics that voids the populist clichés about shared ideologies and visions between our parties.
In the past fortnight, our “visions” have been bundied around by party and coalition hopers so rapidly that they seemed to attest to a collective ideological void. Indeed when parties set off to negotiate coalition agreements, power sharing has been way out the main obsession with only token references to objectives of coalition. Welcome to post modern Kenya.
The most instructive lesson from the NAK coalition of 2002 is on choosing the coalition presidential candidate. Proffered wisdom points to the truism that fragile political formations can be ruined by mishandling the choice of top leadership.
Whenever possible, allow institutional growth before rushing into factional bloodletting in the name of democratic competition.
Parties like Ford and Ford Kenya saw their demise in the 1990s because of a naïve embrace of top leadership contests before building capacity to limit fallout. Coalitions formed only months to an election are even more susceptible to such a fall.
NAK accepted this thinking from the very outset. Coalition making is founded on two understandings. Inside the nascent coalition, the parties seek success over victory. This means as much as possible avoid contests which, while providing a winner, will also produce losers.
This helps keep groups together but also spares energies and resources which should be unleashed on the contest where you pursue victory; the contest with the other parties.
The decision by Cord leaders to arrive at a candidate by consensus, while helped by the clear pre-eminence of one of the parties and its leader, is embracing the truism of NAK 2002: do not dance yourself lame before the main dance.
As Jubilee Alliance looks to put its train on the rail, it has to deal quickly with this vexing question. Left on their own, party and candidate faithful will make all manner of statements.
Partisans are calling for democracy, promising resounding victory for their party candidates and deriding the competition. This is their understandable political coin. Coalition leaders must offer leadership.
Bloodletting and breach of trust will unleash a fatal blow to a fragile coalition. Lock yourselves in a room and let your fans wait for the white smoke, as they say, in choosing a new pope. In rapidly built coalitions leaders owe their supporters a credible run for national power more than a potentially crippling internal contest.
Dr Mukhisa Kituyi is a director at the Kenya Institute of Governance i mukhisakituyi@yahoo.com
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