Analysts have predicted that the exodus from ODM and the government is likely to swell as the elections draw nearer, and as 'friends for flags' leave the government for the opposition. On the side opposed to the government, there will also be an emanation, especially as the post-election positions are apportioned and ambitions are let down.

This would be natural anywhere, but perhaps more within our borders than anywhere else is there a fickleness in the formation and dissolution of alliances. In this world of desultory bonds,even after the onset of multi-partyism, there is little chance that team work and planning will lead anywhere as shifting sands demand new ties. The result is that vital economic and social progress is set aside as point scoring and immediate gratification prevail over the need to construct new and lasting structures. It could even be said, that Kenya's biggest political problem is the way a murky alliance of money and the hegemony of the big tribes rules our politics. There are several MPs today who have not a bone in their body that supports whatever alliance they are in, but who nonetheless find themselves shackled to political organisations in order to stay relevant.

This already bad situation is further exacerbated by the fact that our people are not educated voters, and that they hardly ever vote in a fashion that is beneficial to their good, Kenyan MPs of conscience are consistently forced to wet their fingers, raise them to the wind, and then turn and with their pacts signed and pocketed, take the wide road.

It is not just Jebii Kilimo who has been compelled to this Faustian compromise. A cursory glance through the ranks of our politicians shows up MPs like Paul Muite, Charity Ngilu, Raphael Tuju, Mukhisa Kituyi, Danson Mungatana, Kivutha Kibwana, James Orengo and even Anyang' Nyong'o and Kiraitu Murungi who have realised first hand that our people do not value independent thinkers, and that they do not ever support the underdog. Conscience is nothing, thirst is everything. To win in this battle, you must cheat, steal, bully and intimidate everyone you can see or feel threatening your position.

This sad state of affairs is perhaps best captured in the travails of Kalonzo Musyoka, also called Stephen. In his days as a chorister for the then ruling party he sought to keep his fingers unsullied by association with the national gravy pot. He kept so clean that his detractors have to go all the way back to the early 1990s to get any mud to stick on him, and even that feels silly compared to the colossal abuse of office that has made the other principals billionaires almost overnight. Even more important than this eschewal of the national culture of kunyakua, was his servility and obedience to the every whim of the Baba, the colossus that ruled Kenyan politics back then. As he grew older, and as the political climate changed, this Stephen was born-again; and in the afternoon of his life realized that he had a pair that were designed for use.

Subsequently, and for a few moments, the gentleman in him was rewarded with thunderous applause from the public gallery and even whispered as a possible future President. National polls proclaimed him the leader among those seeking occupancy of State House, far ahead of his fellow in ODM. And then it all went wrong.

What he forgot was that the way to State House more often than not is taken on all fours, and here he was brash and outspoken,not knowing his place, not playing the game.

Before he could open his eyes from his constant prayer, the media and his foes had been joined in an alliance against him. Unschooled in the vicious ways of the world, it took forever before he could clench a fist and fight back, and when he did he realised that in the arena of tribal kings and billionaires he packed a feeble punch.

Some will say that they never would support Kalonzo anyhow, that he was not a reformist or a revolutionary. Perhaps it is best then to finish with the ghost of the fearless James Orengo, whose name is burnished in every mind and who is lionized even by his most intransigent foes. This Orengo was in the media this week, giving an interview to weekly paper Leader . What was clear from the interview, for me, was that like many of us James Orengo is persuaded by the pro-Wanjiku stance that ODM in its variant forms seems to take. We are after all witnesses both to the perfidy of Kibaki with regard to the MoU of the last election, and also to the resounding beating meted out to the government by the movement at the Referendum in 2005. What comes out however, is that in spite of the obvious attraction to ODM, he is still wary of being too close to it, of defending it, even of drawing a difference between President Kibaki, Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka. The interview ends up feeling like a commentary from an uninvolved outsider.

This is an issue that has exercised my mind for many months. The solution is not in new political parties, there are many of those. Even as more of them are registered, the curiosities still stand. Why then are there so many Kenyans who are not ready to go the ODM way even though they support its proposed spirit and indeed were vociferous in their support for it in 2005? Why is it that many in ODM pay lip service to the movement and its leaders, even as they ride along in the all crushing juggernaut? Why are there many leaders and politicians who have pretensions to a pro-reform, pro-people agenda but who find themselves restricted within the confines of the NARC-K conservative ranks? What is Kiraitu Murungi doing in the NARC-K government, and why is Ngilu not yet in ODM?