This endorsement of the incumbent is not a far-fetched outcome. It is the result of a number of factors, each weighty in its own right. The president retains membership of two clubs, each mighty and determined. The first is the Gikuyu tribe, or for these purposes the GEMA peoples. In Kenya's political culture, riven as it is with tribal rivalries, the Gikuyu and their cousins in the GEMA grouping make for an immensely powerful bloc. Numbering close to 40% of the population, they give any candidate from their midst an incredible advantage at election time, some many even say insurmountable advantage.

The former Vice President Kibaki is also one of the oldest members of Kenya's political and business elite. No, not the neophytes like Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka or Mukhisa Kituyi who have only recently cut their political teeth but truly old players some of them dating to beyond political independence from the UK. Unlike the battling boys in the ODM-K camp, these men are united beyond mere political affiliation. Their land and business empires overlap, as do often their family ties. But the most powerful ingredient in the glue that binds them is the fact that they are revelers in the status quo. Sure it may get a little uncomfortable if someone from without their control ascends to the Presidency, but if the changes made are not too radical, things are just peachy for them, just peachy. This cabal needs to retain control of Kenyan politics, to bequeath it to their sons and to expand their reaches as far as they can.

The second factor propping up the expectation of a Kibaki victory is the proximity of his fingers, even his indolent fingers to the buttons and levers of state. The incumbent's inertia aside, the Kenyan President, if so inclined can tilt an electoral landscape his way in innumerable ways. The President's unilateral composition of the Electoral Commission set the tone, even as recent murmurs about a plan for the mobilisation of the Provincial Administration and the police service, prove that this administration will not be coy about strong-arming those opposed to them if the need arises.

President Kibaki also enjoys the advantage of incumbency during a period of economic growth and political stability. If the current headlines, rumours of assassination plots, harassment of journalists, land clashes, crime waves and widespread poverty are brushed under the carpet; and the resultant sunny day compared to the early 1990s one can see the picture that inspires the writing of Kibaki's campaign prospectus. Consider also the generally bullish performance of the Nairobi Stock Exchange, the reality of a Revenue Authority whose coffers are sagging under the weight of an unprecedented tax loot, an improved agricultural economy and a gleeful business community; and you could be beguiled into thinking Kenyans have had a good old time these last five years.

To give an incumbent credit for reforms and improvements he was only completing or for the outcomes of policies that precede him is perhaps the practice throughout the world of voting nations. In our particular case, it is also incredibly irresponsible, for it forgives and blesses the lackadaisical manner in which the country has been run since 2002. This laidback style, would be permissible if our President were merely Head of State or if we were a state coasting along nicely to utopia. Neither of these is true with regard to Kenya, we are instead a nation struggling to get up on knees raw with the wounding of 40 years of economic and political catastrophe.

While our situation demands visionary and determined leadership to marshal the collective will in a progressive direction, we have had in the last four years, a first hand case study of how a chief executive thrust effortlessly into power against the whims of common sense can sit on his hands. Historical nicknames aside, the President has abdicated his duties as Kenya has craved leadership on a new all-encompassing constitution, East African Federation, the conflict in Somalia, the land time-bomb and related clashes in Mt. Elgon, Turkana, West Pokot, Mau and Tana River among innumerable other situations.

It is true that this determined strategy to do nothing has often been temporarily shelved, but even then merely to purvey the most obtrusive discrimination, of a kind unrivalled since the 1970s. Where the nation sought healing from political oppression of 40 years, it has received in its stead a perpetuation, even an extension of the nepotistic corruption that has created a greatly polarized Kenyan society.

Clement weather, investor goodwill, a surge in remittances, divestments of state stakes and a healing from the trauma inflicted by the Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes flatter the present view of the economy, but as the effect of these boons wear away, it is vital that Kenya embark on a programme of radical reform in anticipation of the future.

An economy built on agriculture will not achieve the growth figures that will lift Kenyans out of poverty, and neither will temporary infusions of finances into the public coffers from taxes or the sale of public assets. Absent a total revolution of our economy, economic growth will slide up and down as the world economy favors, with an ever increasing class of poor Kenyans.

Understandably perhaps, the spectre of an ODM-K presidency sends many into a panic; but this must not preclude the appreciation of the fact that Mwai Kibaki's Presidency has been a sad failure. Promising much and delivering very little, it has not served in any way to sort out our deepest structural problems, nor provided the guidance and impetus to guide our economy and national outlook in any way fundamentally different from what prevailed since the late 1990s. I will not waste my vote, I will make sense of my ritual, I will not vote Kibaki.