By OKECH KENDO
For the diehards among the 5.3 million Kenyans who voted for Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka on CORD presidential ticket, hope snapped when the Supreme Court validated Uhuru Kenyatta’s election.
Some cried over spilt milk. In their minds, which are untainted by ‘legal’ training, Africog and CORD lawyers had reasonable evidence of irregularities and admitted clerical errors.
The midway CORD supporters were expecting was a run-off to rekindle their hope in democracy. They had contemplated electoral managers from the Commonwealth because IEBC had proved incompetent: A Sh15,000,000,000 electronic electoral package had crashed under their supervision. With the system still, possibly, under warranty, a backup from the suppliers was still on the cards.
When a run-off did not happen, they saw justice melt in the distant TV-generated corridors of the Supreme Court. The six judges evaporated under a curious security shield.
The court of last resort had dashed the hopes, with verdicts which supporters did not believe were based entirely on court proceedings. Instead, they heard the chorus: “Let us move on! Let us move on!”
For them Issack Hassan, chairman of the IEBC, had betrayed free and fair elections. In their non-legal minds, Chief Justice Willy Mutunga was now robbing them of hope.
Their heroine, lawyer Kethi Kilonzo, who had kept hope alive, throughout the week of high drama, was passé. Three weeks of waiting disappeared in ten minutes that put justice on trial. It was over – finished, with irreversible finality.
From Mombasa to Busia, Migori to Marsabit, and Kilifi to Kisii, the past had returned to torment. It was an old play with a new cast, but the same old audience was sitting through the show. For the Independence generation, it was back to the 1960s and the 1970s – the era of grand isolation.
These feelings, which run across the other Kenya, are challenges President-elect Uhuru Kenyattamust address when he takes office on April 9, with a solemn promise to Kenya.
Yet these feelings of betrayal are not entirely without pillars. If these issues are not addressed, they would still leave the other Kenya feeling isolated and second-rated.
The President will have to show he is a new generation leader in the post-2010 constitutional era. He will have to show that although he is a Kenyatta, he is not Old Jomo; that even though he is from central Kenya, he is out of sync with the Mwai Kibaki generation. That generation could only trust homeboys and home girls with ‘sensitive’ dockets like security, finance, and energy.
What President Uhuru does to reconcile the nation will show he is not encumbered with the prejudices of the Kenyatta and the Kibaki eras.
President Uhuru has politically astute Kenyans and technocrats like Martin Oduor-Otieno from Busia County, Shem Ochuodho from Homa Bay County, Jacinta Mwatela from Taita Taveta County, among others, to work with, not to spite his rivals, but to build honest bridges.
There are losers in Lower Eastern, who flatter Uhuru to spite Vice-President Kalonzo. There are also fringe politicians from Nyanza who seek Uhuru’s eye merely to spite Raila. They have a record of flattering kings to feather their nests. Such would add no value to national reconciliation.
The 1970s, through the eyes of a scholar who lived the Kenyatta years under vice-chancellorship of the late Josephat Karanja at the University of Nairobi, show the challenges Uhuru will confront. It’s the acumen of doing so that will make him the president of all Kenyans during the second decade of the 21st century. The new era celebrates peace, justice and equity.
Finally, certain truths are irreversible: Uhuru Kenyatta is the fourth President of Kenya. If he rises above historical prejudices, he could turn fears into admiration, within the first 100 days of his presidency.
If he does, he could find re-election in 2017 much easier. For, if the man delivers with stately honesty, many would care less the ethnicity of the resident of State House.
Right-thinking Kenyans desire a president who would give all Kenyans a sense of belonging. The agenda then is to build one Kenya – one nation.
The other Kenya should appreciate how the other Kenya lives. Northern Kenya, western, and coastal should be one Kenya, the way it was intended to be.
The other fact is that Raila would remain the most prominent defender of civil liberties, a post-independent liberator without compare; a leader who has sacrificed and dedicated his entire life to making Kenya a better place.
Raila is an Odinga, another liberation hero and first Vice-President of Kenya, but his national eminence is a child of his own ideological gravitas as a citizen with a high sense of civic responsibility. That he did not become president in 2007 or 2013 has nothing to do with his flaws, but with democracy as a game of numbers, which is still framed in ethnic terms.
Kalonzo is a diplomat par excellence – a rare politician who rose through two regimes without a whiff of corruption to tar on his integrity. You can take away any other thing from him, but integrity is his middle name. He deserves respect as a Kenyan who stayed above the fray of corruption.
President Uhuru and Deputy President William Ruto have a historical responsibility: To run the county to value, so that in future Kenyans would rank performance and integrity above other prejudices.
The writer is The Standard’s Managing Editor Quality and Production.
kendo@standardmedia.co.ke
No comments:
Post a Comment