Sunday, February 24, 2013

Raila and Uhuru are ordinary mortals, not messiahs anybody should die for


By MURIITHI MUTIGA  ( email the author)

Posted  Saturday, February 23  2013 at  19:44
In Summary
  • Not worth bloodshed: Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks gave us insights into the very real character flaws of the two politicians
SHARE THIS STORY
 
 
 
0
Share

An objective assessment of the records in public office of Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta does not suggest either will make a great president.
They have their strengths. Both are probably the most talented politicians of their generation.
However, Mr Odinga, it should be recalled, was nowhere near a position of dominance among the Young Turks who fought for the reintroduction of multipartyism. In the pecking order in Ford, he was well behind the likes of Paul Muite, Kijana Wamalwa, James Orengo, Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, Gitobu Imanyara and Kiraitu Murungi.
Mr Odinga has manoeuvred with great skill to emerge comfortably as the most successful of the crop of oppositionists who gained prominence in the 1990s.
Mr Kenyatta’s rise and rise into a credible challenger for the Kibaki succession has been little less than dizzying. Conventional wisdom less than two years ago suggested he had little chance of winning, not least because of his shared ethnic roots with the President.
The International Criminal Court indictment made his chances of ascending to State House seem even more remote.
But with his running mate William Ruto, he has played the victim card masterfully and now has a real shot at victory.
In a normal society, this would be a very low-key presidential campaign. It is being played out, after all, between two career politicians who are card-carrying members of the establishment and have been at the heart of government for most of the last decade. Both of them subscribe to the Vision 2030 development masterplan. Their manifestoes are almost indistinguishable.
The only reason the campaign is so impassioned is the fact that 50 years after independence, we still remain tragically and comically divided along ethnic lines.
Listening to supporters of the two men going at each other, you would think they are extolling the virtues of a latter-day Nelson Mandela or a Martin Luther King Jr.
The truth is more mundane. One can hardly ever find an objective source of information on Kenya written by Kenyans because most of it is judged on the basis of the ethnicity of the author.
But there is an invaluable treasure trove of information that was revealed to the world by the anti-secrecy agency WikiLeaks. The thousands of cables sent by the American Embassy to Washington addressing numerous issues, including local politics are very revelatory.
What do US diplomats make of Kenyatta and Odinga? Not very much. Uhuru is described as “bright and charming, even charismatic”. Ambassador Michael Ranneberger, however, suggested the reason he is rarely involved in corruption is because his father amassed so much wealth that it’s unnecessary for his sons to work for any more.
“Kenyatta’s liabilities are at least as important as his strengths,” the cable reads. “He is not a hard worker …” and indulges too much in a certain recreational habit.
Mr Odinga is described as a statesman for accepting the power-sharing deal and praised for his heroic struggle for expansion of the democratic space. But the criticism of his time as Premier is biting.
This is what James Orengo told Mr Ranneberger: “Odinga has not been forthright in driving implementation of the reform agenda. Odinga has done nothing to reorganise his office to make it more effective; Odinga is a poor manager who does not follow up; and he is primarily focused on preparing for his presidential run in 2012.”
The cables are more expansive. But they offer yet more evidence that these two men are not the messiahs their fervent supporters have made them into. They are just ambitious politicians who have done very well to position themselves for the presidency.
They are emphatically not worth the loss of a single Kenyan life in a fight to ensure that one or the other moves in to State House.
mmutiga@ke.nationmedia.com

No comments:

Post a Comment