For a long time, I was one of this number, tenacious in my determination that I would not stoop to the level of the madding crowds. My education and my upbringing allowed me an informed evaluation of the candidates. I was not won over by the change agenda in 2002, and neither did it make much sense to me in 2007. I am not won over by the large crowds, the sense of finality, the pledge of change or the enormous resources the top candidates can marshal in their defense. The propaganda tricks of both sides seem to me immensely unfair and often counterproductive. 

Happier days

I do not buy the idea that the Kibaki government has been successful, far from it. I think too little has been done, and there has been little in the way of an imaginative approach. I remember Einstein's quip that solving problems using the same mindset that landed us in them is unlikely to prove successful. I was hoping in 2002 for a radical change in our economic policies, for a departure from the same old story, and most of all that there would be a change in our governance structures.

Instead we are confronted with two candidates who have proved that in spite of their different origins, and their different career paths, they are cut from the same cloth. Surrounding themselves with corrupt individuals may be forgivable given the scarcity of choice around us, but what is not forgivable is their involvement in it. I am not for a minute persuaded that State House was ignorant of Anglo-Leasing, but neither am I foolish enough to believe that Raila Odinga has built a multi-billion shilling empire from faithful service to the people of Kenya.

Their politics are clearly divisive. None but the most obdurate will defend Mwai Kibaki for forfeiture of the goodwill and unity of purpose the nation was carried away with in 2002. There was a chance for a coming together and a renewal then and he lost it. It is true that Raila Odinga may be hard to work with and that the MoU between Kibaki and the LDP could not be implemented without compromising the President's ability to govern effectively, but it was not only Raila that suffered the brash ways of the Kibaki government. Many who have stayed in the President's camp like Wangari Maathai and Danson Mungatana; or others who have left it like Charity Ngilu could have been easily accommodated. Any Kenyan of even the most meager conscience will find the Standard raid most reprehensible, as they would the now publicized extra-judicial murder of 500 youths in the crackdown on Mungiki.

Re-fuelled farming

But this less than sunny side to the Kibaki years is tempered with what has for many been a period of economic and political expansion. By whatever design, the Kibaki government has presided over a period of improved incomes for farmers, a revitalization of several state corporations, and an expansion of basic freedoms. Importantly also, it has brought about an increase in the influence and independence of the institutions that will work to lift us out of our dire state: the education system, the media, parliament, the judiciary, the financial industry, the stock market and civil society. For the first time in decades the country has won international accolades for government reforms. Crucial amenities like electricity and water are finding their way to the rural areas, where allied with CDF and better prices for farmers they are causing a large improvement in the standards of life there.

It is much easier now than ever before for an intrepid Kenyan to start a business or to raise the finances to expand one. It is no longer necessary that a Kenyan student seek employment after graduating from school. He can instead become an employer himself taking advantage of facilities such as the state provided Youth Fund and the low interest rates. Across the board, from farmers to large industries, there are record profits available for the first time in decades and the middle class is growing.

So the Kibaki government has had a very mixed term, but what is the alternative? Does the opposition really deserve our vote? ODM, Raila Odinga's party first came to our attention in 2005, the year of the referendum. The movement brought together the opposition party KANU, former president Moi and those of the LDP who felt shortchanged by the Kibaki government. The referendum was won by an immense margin with not an insignificant amount of support from the government side which refused to campaign and from the Christian religious organizations which rallied their congregations against hints in the Wako Draft of a ceding ground to Muslims on the matter of Shariah Courts. But 2005 is long gone, and this election is much more complex than the simple ‘Yes' and ‘No' Kenyans were then presented with.

Many in the ODM team have served in government in the last ten years, either under Moi or Kibaki. For this reason they can be judged on their conduct in office even as they in turn pelt the Kibaki government, for this reason they share the stain of the follies and transgressions of these two governments. It is most simple-minded to imagine that our Presidents govern in isolation or that sending them away from government somehow absolves everyone they worked with from the stain of complicity in the crimes of those governments. More than that, the devolutionary arrangement that is CDF allows us to see firsthand, what the MPs are capable of achieving on a small scale, when they have the executive and political leadership to drive their ambitions through. It is also an assessment of what skills it would transfer to the national stage. Last but not least, the ODM's electoral promises are a window into their likely management of the instruments of power, and their capacity to deliver the much needed change that Kenya's desperate situation so badly craves.

Same old story

The ODM starts at the blocks advertised as an agent of change, and for a people stuck in a rut as stubborn as ours, talk of change is truly seductive. But we are hardly off the blocks when we realize that the change agenda is nothing but a marketing trick. Inside the snazzy new orange package is the same old product. At ODM's head is a who's who of the same disgraceful men that Kenyans sought to disassociate themselves with in 2002. From the Molasses' Raila, to Goldenberg's Musalia Mudavadi, Kenya National Assurance's Kosgei, Pipeline and NSSF's Ruto to the cream of scandal surrounding top civil servants from earlier years. In fact apart from Anyang' Nyong'o and if we are to be generous Raila Odinga, the entirety of the leaders who worked hard to dethrone the single party state are on the PNU allied side. Quite clearly ODM is not above reproach, it is not different. In addition, even its lower ranks are filled with the self-same inept civil servants of old, eager to transfer their dullness and their rent-seeking ways to the high earning offices of Parliament. Indeed, so mired is the party in controversy that its leading lights have sought to allay fears that they are on a revenge trip by stating that the same reports that incriminate their enemies incriminate them too. In conclusion then, all our politicians are sullied by association with corruption, so this is not at all the gauge on suitability for public office, the points lost for hypocrisy aside.

What makes the ODM stand out particularly, is its campaign promises and in particular the ramifications for Kenya if these are carried out. The party has promised a radical re-organization of our form of government, a massive increase in spending (on everything from sanitary towels to a boost in CDF to 60% of national revenue to salary hikes for civil servants). The party is ready it seems to pledge everything under the sun. What holds the ODM back it seems is not a desire for action, nor is it the reins of reason and reality. Unplanned and irreverent of the need for wider consultation, the party risks destroying the little chance we have at economic and structural renewal. Majimbo by itself promises to be a supremely expensive undertaking and repatriating stolen funds from abroad or the meager savings from efficiency are not going to provide sufficient funding, not when an expensive constitutional review and a reduced tax take cast darkness over state coffers.

Sharing oranges

ODM risks the demise of our economy with its haphazard and dictatorial approach to public policy. A president who asks the public to avoid paying rent, who heckles at the Stock Exchange and dissuades investment into our country by throwing mud at the financial and property sectors is unlikely to be attractive to even those investors who choose to overlook his loopy aspirations to calculating growth based on happiness - whose happiness exactly it is difficult to understand.

Worst of all however is the ODM and its leader's strategy at gaining a victory on any political battle; pit the people against each other. To win the votes of the Muslims at the Coast and in North Eastern province, it signs a middle of the night pact that causes a rift between the religions. To win the sympathy of tenants, it asks that they do not pay rents, to win the sympathy of the rural voters; it points at the Agikuyu and baptizes them adui painting Central Kenya as a paradise blessed by the government at the expense of the rest of Kenya. To win the favor of the Pentecostal Christian Churches, its candidate affirms his Christianity and states his opposition to making deals with religious groups, to win over the poor he points at the success of stock market investors and the property developers, alleging its association with crime. To further sideline the Agikuyu, the party alleges a secret pact between Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta, a deal in which Kibaki promises to hand government to Uhuru. The message could not be clearer, and the poor people in villages around the country lap it up.

For a fact, this attitude of the ODM's will make it much more difficult to resolve our very real problems. The land problem in the Rift Valley (it is all too real) cannot be resolved under a president who has labeled one side the enemy, whose every move will be seen as a continuation of his vengeful streak. Majimbo, even were we to assume it was workable, will demand the funding of the presently less productive regions for a long while as they build the capacity to be self-sustaining. This will be impossible when the regions see each other as rivals, when the poorer regions see the wealthier ones as having stolen from them, and when Kenyans in their own country are portrayed as invaders. It will be impossible to have Majimbo without the blessing of a large part of the Kenyan population.

Which way to go?

The very urgent need for reform in the financial sector will be impossible under a party that is hostile to the financial industry. Reforming the economy and creating jobs is unlikely to be a successful endeavor when the head of state derides Jua Kali, a sector that has created jobs and imparted dignity on millions of Kenyans. Kenya's infrastructure growth itself will be premised on access to funds, and a perception of political and economic stability. A president who cannot be relied on to keep an opinion for longer than two days is unlikely to provoke much confidence in an emerging market, especially not with the increasing challenges of a decline in global oil stocks, the American war on terror and climate change.

It is for these reasons that I see an ODM government as not only insincere in its desire to clean Kenya up, but also possessive of the kind of ideas that would end up making things much worse than they already are. I am so convinced of this fact that it seems to me irresponsible that I should be neutral any longer, this is no longer politics but something far more immediate, far more urgent. A punt on ODM seems to me to be a reversion to the bigman Messiah/ Prince of Peace politics that we divorced ourselves from when Moi left State House. The ODM's anti-Kikuyu stand is the most poisonous possible approach to governance a country could take, even more dangerous to national progress than its offensive attempt to drag Muslims into a position of conflict with other Kenyans. I believe my love for Kenya, for the unity of our country, for its prosperity and for the increased importance of institutions over the whims of individuals demand an end to my middle of the road position. I will vote against the ODM at the end of the year only because it is wrong to do nothing when you must do something.