1. Goldenberg: Three of the eight candidates were involved in one way or the other in the scam. Obviously Musalia Mudavadi inherited it when he became the Finance minister in 1993. He did well to stop the Parliamentary Accounts Committee's recommendation that Kamlesh Pattni’ s Goldenberg be paid even more compensation. Paul Muite admitted that “some people” around him were probably in the mix. We should not nail someone merely through guilt by association, but it seems that this matter will for sometime hover over him like a dark cloud.
Raila Odinga differed with his then party boss, the late Wamalwa Kijana, the then PAC chair by virtue of FORD-Kenya being the largest opposition party, over this matter, and especially the latter’s pushing of the PAC to recommend the awarding of further compensation to Goldenberg. Actually, Raila instituted a private prosecution that was predictably snuffed out by AG Amos Wako. During the debate Raila could have done himself real good by at least pointing to that private prosecution. One cannot understand why he just kept mum. Had the late Saitoti been a candidate, the matter would have been really politically embarrassing despite his having been exonerated by the High Court.
2. Molasses Plant: In cricket parlance, Raila hit the ball out of the park on this one. He did not do himself any harm by pointing out that Spectre bought the land and the caboodle through a public auction. The impression out there has been that the plant was “grabbed”. Could it have been possible without some dalliance with Daniel Arap Moi? May be or maybe not. Was the purchase illegal? It does not seem to be illegal. Was the purchase immoral? That may depend on where you stand. But the matter as it came out in the debate was not as bad as it has often been made out to be. Of equal significance was the statement that there are “clear registers and records” of those others who contributed monies and were conjoined in the Spectre bid, and that they are represented on the board of the company. The impression out there has been that the Odinga family “conned” those others.
3. The land question: It was being hypothesised that Uhuru’ s threat not to turn up for the second debate was because he supposedly feared that he would end up on the wrong side of this matter or at least it would be as uncomfortable to him as the ICC matter had been in the first debate. He helped himself a bit with the otherwise uncomfortable ICC issue by calling it a “personnel challenge” he has to deal with just like other Kenyans also have to, thus humanising himself even if he was not convincing in regard to how he would govern the country.
Uhuru did himself a lot of good to appear for the second debate for he would have had coward written all over himself. His opponents would have had a field day with the land mater, and he would not have been in a position to be able to directly rebut any brickbats that came his way. Perhaps his threat not to attend was just some ploy of sorts. Did his appearance at the debate help his image? It at least created the impression that he was not evading the limelight in some discomfiture. Uhuru in the end did not come out badly but neither was the matter “resolved” if you want to put it that way.
Will it now recede into the background? Probably not. He tried his best to explain his position through the “willing buyer, willing seller” line and that it has been dealt with via the declaration of wealth required of public officers. This is much like Mitt Romney declining to make public his annual tax returns save for two years. Uhuru did not dispel the impression that he and his family sit on immensely huge tracts of land acquired by proximity to power, specifically by his father having been the Head of State for 15 years. Is that illegal? May be not. Is it an issue politically and morally? Politically yes.
Morally it may depend on where you are, but that it is potent politically is indicated by reports that the Kenyatta family has ceded 4,000 acres in Taveta. And that is precisely the matter. If you can cede that much land, then how much do you own? How did you come to own 4,000 acres in Taveta? Who were the immediate previous owners? If these owners were departing colonial settlers should the land not have gone to Tavetans? How were other tracts of land acquired? This is the line of questioning that Martha Karua should have taken. As a very strong presidential contender, why was Uhuru largely quite about the delay in the appointment of the land commission?
Paul Muite did himself a lot of good by proposing that some leases of large tracts of land in the Rift Valley should not be renewed on the expiry of the 99 year period so that the pieces can be used to settle the landless in those areas.
Uhuru and Raila did not do themselves much good when it came out that feuds between the Finance and Lands ministries which are probably at the centre of some of the shortcomings in the resettlement of IDPs.
Dida touched on a raw nerve in Central Province, i.e the land that those perceived to have been members of or supporters of the Mau Mau lost to the so-called “home guards” and “loyalists”. The latter classes were no doubt quite close to Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. Raila was right, the betrayal of the aspirations of freedom fighters and other concomitant historical injustices cannot be blamed on Uhuru. The commission of the “original sin”, if at all, lies elsewhere.
4. Wages, salaries, inequalities: Paul Muite did himself very well arguing that the way to redress inequalities and low wages is to work to grow the economy, create more opportunities and jobs, and also to grow wages. Peter Kenneth, who put in a very improved performance compared to the first round, did well with apt statistics indicating that he had some knowledge of the basics of this issue. Raila looked at sea arguing that the best way forward in addressing low wages was to “dialogue”, and he staggered a bit when asked if he knew the kinds of challenges ordinary Kenyans undergo. Uhuru performed with confidence in relation to the economic issues, his stint as Finance minister will obviously be a memorable one and also for the good reasons. Karua’s “liveable” vis-a –vis “minimum” wage was a gem. Dida seems most acquainted with the hardships that ordinary Kenyans have to undergo.
Much as the Salaries and Remuneration Commission is a constitutional body that cannot be dictated to, it is not convincing for presidential candidates to be seeming to be leaving everything in regard to the salaries of state and public officers to the commission, especially when its recent proposals on the pay of state officers appear to be signalling business as usual.
5. Compromise candidate: Mudavadi who otherwise had a good debate, having responded strongly to the Goldenberg matter, finished with a whimper because of his closing statement. His candidacy has been premised on “compromise”. What he needs to learn is that Kenyans will never elect someone as president simply because he is some compromise candidate, and especially if they are perceived to have a weak spine or are weak kneed.
Kibaki was a compromise candidate in 2002 not because he is “gentle” but because he was also the “strongest” among the people supporting him. Through the NAK he had managed to bring together no less than 12 political parties including his DP, FORD-Kenya, and NPK. The LDP brigade of Raila, Kalonzo, and Awori had no choice but to endorse him since the very act of departing Kanu and actually joining the “opposition” that they had hitherto scoffed at, had in a way weakened them.
You do not seek refuge in a neighbour’ s house and think that you can call the shots there. Kibaki had since his loss to Moi, having come in at a strong second remained steadfast as leader of the opposition while Raila had his NDP dissolved to join Kanu. Mudavadi who wants to paint himself as a Kibaki of sorts with a “gentlemanly mien” should pay attention to Kibaki’s bare knuckled campaign in 1997.
In the 2013 general election, it is Raila and not Mudavadi who is the compromise candidate, and it is precisely because he is stronger than Mudavadi, with the latter apparently being a very poor student of Kenyan political history despite having been in its midst for over two decades. Coincidentally, Raila is in 2013 a compromise candidate facing Uhuru as his strongest opponent just like KIbaki faced the latter as a compromise candidate in 2002. In contrast to the departure from Kanu by the LDP troop, Mudavadi vacated ODM almost alone. At least William Ruto left with his colleagues from North and Central Rift and beyond in tow. If Ruto and Uhuru were not willing to have the much stronger Kalonzo as their compromise candidate, how were they going to settle for Mudavadi?
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