Following the President’s appointment of Kalonzo Musyoka as
his Vice President, I have come face to face with the frothing, seething hatred for the
man in the ODM’s ranks.
It is true that the ODM do not need a reason to hate
anything and anyone, the mere fact that you are not one of them is enough
reason for them to throw insults at you and do their very best to strike in you
the liveliest terror. I have read such sentiments in Lucas Mboya's recent comment and have myself suffered these attacks. Perfidy by now, is my nom de plume.
Still, I cannot understand why the ODM hate Kalonzo so much.
The ODM's leader in particular seems to harbour a particularly nasty grudge
against the Mwingi MP which true to the nature of the party and its hacks in
the Kenyan media has in the last week been faithfully relayed to the Kenyan
people.
But what has Kalonzo Musyoka done to deserve this hatred,
and why does it extend into civil society too? The ODM-K leader had
after all pledged his party's support to whoever needed it after the election.
More than that, the shameful and vicious manner in which he was treated by the
ODM before it left the ODM-K and the punishment meted out on the Akamba by the
ODM's supporters after the election, clearly preclude him joining up with the Raila, Ruto and Musalia axis
in their crusade against peace.
The gravest charge brought against him is that he served in
the Moi government. Well, yes he did, but who did not? Kalonzo certainly was
not as involved in KANU as men like Kibaki were, and he never rose to a
position of such power as Raila Odinga and William Ruto did. Even more,
and this in spite of the best efforts of the likes of Sarah Elderkin and the
like to sully his reputation, Kalonzo has clearly been steadfast in his maintenance of a higher than
average integrity. While it took Raila and Ruto very short stints in KANU and
in government to make billions of shillings, the bulk of them in what we must
euphemistically label controversial dealings, Kalonzo has come out looking far
cleaner, especially considering his 20 year career at the very top of national
politics.
Perhaps Kalonzo is loathed because he shames the ODM into a
position from which its anti-reform credentials become readily apparent. While
Raila and his family resort to establishing legality with regard to the irregularly
acquired Kisumu Molasses plant , Kalonzo is only too happy to return to the mwananchi land that was allocated to
him. When there were allegations of cooked mileage claims raised against him in
parliament, the ODM-K leader promptly repaid the said money back and apologised
for the error. It is clear that we may hold out breaths till the coming of the new world, but there is no way the Kenya Commercial Bank will recoup the money it lost in the Molasses deal, and neither will the Korando Kogony find justice.
Prior to the election, in a move that has been widely
praised, the Vice President declared his wealth and called on his competitors
to follow his example. Here apparently is a man who at least on matters of integrity
is ready to stand up and be counted. Here is a man who has shown courage and
disproved all those who have called him a coward and a sycophant. In 2002 he
walked out on President Moi and proved us wrong while we impatiently waited for
him to defect back to KANU. In 2005 he walked out on president Kibaki, again
while the expectation was that he would bite hard and take the pain. He
withstood the bullying of the rabid ODM support and from great disadvantage
prosecuted a presidential campaign devoid of the hatred and violence that the
ODM's regions have bequeathed on Kenyans.
He should properly be the darling of the Kenyan reform
movement. Unlike Raila Odinga, Kalonzo has no history of violence. He may have
stood in the way of change by speaking against multi-partyism in Washington,
but it certainly was not Kalonzo who worked hard to block the efforts of the
likes of James
Orengo and the late Dr Oki
Ombaka, both of whom were subjected to the most severe violence by youths
associated with the Langata MP elect.
But perhaps Kalonzo is guilty of associating himself with President
Kibaki after the contested election? Well, let's travel a little back in time
to a period much like this one 10 years ago. President Daniel Arap Moi had been
announced Election winner by ECK Chairman Samuel Kivuitu. The opposition heads
were united, along with the NDP's Raila Odinga in condemning the election as
flawed. It was not too long after that Raila Odinga abandoned those efforts,
accepted the result and left his fellow protesters looking foolish. Why did he
leave, and where was he going?
Into the steady embrace of Moi, where inveigled with the
goodies of the patronage system, his party was soon supporting the Moi
kleptocracy, saving it from votes of no confidence by first Ugenya MP James
Orengo and then a second one brought by Kisumu Rural MP Anyang'
Nyong'o. So it is that not everything is as it seems. Kalonzo persists even
now in seeking a resolution the Kenya's
unfortunate mess, he ignores even now the insults piled on him by the ODM's
most exemplary captain and he pledges himself to providing Kenya
with a new constitution. The ODM leader in his time, when he let down his
opposition mates and joined KANU, was best engaged in flitting about expensively
in public helicopters and blocking the reform process. I do not suppose Kalonzo
will be nearly as bad, not if he persists as he has been. It must have been difficult after all to resist the severe temptations to pilfer while in government, less disciplined souls have become billionaires overnight.
The ODM and its
minions would do well to leave him alone, he has every right to track his political path for himself. Once the ODM had been proved to have rigged the vote in Nyanza and Rift Valley province, they have lost the moral right to claim justice on their side. Kalonzo is much aware of this, and he has proved to care about this
country much more than have the ODM leaders.
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