If you are, as I suppose is likely, Kenyan, the content
of this article may be a little bewildering. So let's start by saying that what
passes for good and even holy in Kenya,
is in most other places unpalatable.
The topmost class of Kenyan politics is mostly peopled by
persons with truly dirty histories. Many of them have hands sullied to the
elbows in the filth of corruption, constituting as they do a billionaire elect
that has made millions in corrupt gains off of what passes for public service within our borders. Of
this same political class are several politicians, many of whose political
fortunes are in no small way built on the most tyrannical and divisive
politics, promoting hatred, violence, exclusion and ethnic division.
The dominance of such types in our leaderships is such that a new entrant into this group is never likely to suffer guilt by association. In fact, the opposite is true, no matter how clean such a one, he will in short order be associated into actual guilt. If he thought himself noble, and tried to run on a clean party ticket, he would be terribly lonely, hanging out at Bunge all by himself and not getting invited to any of his fellows home-coming parties. It is improbable that his fortunes would be any better with the voting public, his employers. These will
look not favourably on him, they would even loath him ad think him effeminate or dull. So it is that to earn his stripes, to shimmy up the political ladder, he must steal or if we must euphemise
borrow public funds, he must have public land legally allocated to him, and hire gangs
of youth to intimidate his opponents or any twerps with the impertinence not
to kiss his extended fist.
He must show off his masculinity, must lie and posture
and threaten and bear the most aggressive nicknames. He must promise
everything, to all men of his tribe and others affiliated to it, and importantly, perhaps most importantly he must seek out the company of those better schooled in public disservice than he. By
this means he will win even greater power, newspaper writers will find themselves unable to resist his inane speeches, and quotations from his lips will be on the lips of every child in the land. With the blood of those standing in his way, little people them, will his star be polished to a steady brightness and when those stars smile on him, he
may even get the opportunity to run for State House itself.
In Kenya, but not in many other countries. In other countries you could lose elections
simply on account of the company you keep.
Our political system does not move us to appreciate this, the fact that the electorate may react unfavorably to politicians schmoozing with villainous characters. And so it is that we must not be too harsh in our judgement of an event from last week. In boasting about his relationship with the
Illinois Senator Barrack Obama, and a certain phone call from the USA,
ODM leader Raila Odinga has cried havoc and truly let loose the dogs of war on
Obama's campaign. American politics is a most vicious enterprise, much more
than the feeble attempt we put up in the last year, and already the ferrets are
out, rubbing their hands in glee and ready to swift boat another politician out of the race.
At the start of this week, the Illinois Senator was fresh
off winning the Iowa caucus, and
was heading towards a predicted win in New Hampshire's
Democratic Party primary. Competing for the headlines with the news of his
triumph was the tragedy of Kenya,
that little country that Obama spoke of so often, the land of his father.
It was therefore inevitable, that the Illinois Senator would be asked, what do you think of what is going on in Kenya.' It was then decided that a short phone call to Nairobi
could not go wrong, it could even boost his campaign .
And it all went according to plan, at first. The media reported that Obama spoke
with the Kenyan opposition leader and urged that he seek dialogue with
President Kibaki. It was also reported that the American Senator, whose father
the media now keeps emphasising was not just Kenyan but also a Luo, promised to speak with State House and to urge the
President in the same direction, dialogue, not war, an effort to treasure the
‘strong democracy'. But that was the last we heard of that call. State House it seems
has not received a call from the Senator.
Even then as the story was carried across the wires, it caught the
attention of the blogosphere and America's
tabloids, and now it seems to be catching fire all around. The intricacies of the Kenyan electoral campaign
and Senator Obama's relationship with the ODM candidate have become
significant to the international media. Every last action of Raila Odinga's is now under scrutiny, his
campaign financiers, his political and business partners, and with the election
violence, even the sins of the ODM supporters. In the intensity of America's
presidential race, any mud that can be thrown at a candidate is fair game. The
candidates themselves may decide against going ugly, but there is never any
doubt that their supporters will pull no punches, and the close relationship (Raila insists ) between Hon. Odinga and Senator Obama is proving fertile ground for his opponents,
both among the Democrats and from the Republican party.
And this is what may be the most memorable effect of the
ODM's post-election campaign for State House. The longer their protests last, and the less
disciplined they are - or the more atrocities like Eldoret are conducted in the party's name- the more likely Kenya is to
be stuck on the front pages of the world's media and the more embarrassment it
will bring to the Senator.
Strange is it not, that the most likely corollary of all this is that a
Republican wins the White House? Opinion polls conducted across the US
indicate that of the Democrat candidates, Obama has an effect so unifying
as to appeal to both sides of the political divide and the neutrals in the
middle and is therefore the party's best bet to beat the Republican candidates.
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Kissing cousins
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You could never have predicted this. The Illinois Senator
Barrack Obama gained a lot from his association with Kenya.
His Kenyan connection showed he was not traditional African-American and so
bore none of the stigma that African Americans carry as the descendants of slaves. Through
him, American politics could enjoy the expiatory effect of having a black
candidate at the top of its politics, one who it did not need to fear as he
bore it no grudge for the sins of slavery and centuries of racism.
The Kenyan connection also served his message of America
as a land of opportunity great good, and added an exotic air to his campaign.
His rousing One America campaign theme was one that a native African-American
could not have promoted, and his foreign connection represented the increasing
number of Americans with foreign-born parentage. Americans would be
happy and so would the world. Here, in an age where Americans felt they had lost
the goodwill of the world, was an American politician whose centrist policies
could bring together not just Americans across the Democrat-Republican divide
but also heal the America's
rift with the world. And the relationship had also done Kenya
much good. Obama's ‘Yes We Can ' speech, given after he lost the New Hampshire
primary served to raise Kenyan spirits as they looked to rise out of the
darkness of the post-election difficulty. The mere prospects of so great a success for a Kenyan 'son' overseas brought with it an air of aspiration and endless possibility, a triumph over the greatest odds.
It would be a calamity, for many of us, if this
previously mutually beneficial relationship would cause Obama's prospects to
flounder. But not for all of us. The increased interest in Raila Odinga may serve to redeem the foreign media from their fixation on a paradigm long gone, one in which President Kibaki plays the role of a brutal corrupt dictator and Raila Odinga an almost angelic crusader for the wider good. There is a noticeable shift in the announcements in foreign media, with a greater acknowledgement of the corruption in the ODM, the vote rigging in ODM areas and the very violent and intransigent histories of some of the party's leaders. With the pressure that this will bring, we may yet reach a faster resolution of our crisis and a little good may be extracted out of this association after all.
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