Poll issues battle rages as top guns campaign

By Standard Team

Debate over what the big issue of the next General Election should be raged on as presidential hopefuls pressed on with their rallies.

ODM’s Raila Odinga was in Nakuru town where he once again dismissed his rivals’ calls for generational change as an empty campaign aimed at stopping him.

Raila insisted nobody should be stopped from taking part in the race to State House. The Prime Minister claimed the high ground on the reform agenda once more just days after a scathing speech last week dismissing his rivals as the “forces of the night”. Raila, 67, has cast the race as one between two ‘horses’, which he recently described as “the horse of reform against the horse of reversal”.

The remark, made at the launch of his campaign website, prompted a swift rejoinder from Deputy PM Uhuru Kenyatta and others in the G7 who have been calling for generational change. Uhuru accused Raila of “living in the past” and “looking at the world through a rear-view mirror”.

“The competition will be between the old generation and the new generation,” the 50-year-old Gatundu South MP said. On Sunday, Uhuru was in Embu where he urged his rivals to campaign peacefully and accept defeat should they lose in the General Election due next year. In a pointed reference to Raila’s “stolen election” complaints in 2007, Uhuru said those who lose must concede defeat and work with the victor.

Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka attended a wedding in Nairobi, where he took on the platform adopted by the Orange Democratic Movement. The VP dismissed “those using the reform agenda” as their issue for the General Election as “pretenders”, who will soon be exposed.

Kalonzo said those trumpeting reforms must be “seriously audited”. The VP, however, did not say why he thought his rivals would fail as reformers. Kalonzo, who is 59, has avoided using the generation change card against Raila. Observers say it is also aimed at him, since he is about a decade older than his allies in the informal G7 grouping.

Narc-Kenya presidential hopeful Martha Karua was in Kakamega where she kept up her push to make corruption the topic of the race.

The Gichugu MP accused fellow lawmakers of failing to use Parliament to fight corruption. She singled out the way MPs handled a report linking ODM-allied Cabinet ministers to a scandal at the National Hospital Insurance Fund, as a sign of the problem. Karua pointed out MPs had constitutional powers to deal with corruption, but were easily compromised.

Deputy PM Musalia Mudavadi was in Kapsabet where he told potential voters he would prefer not to have a run-off in the presidential poll. Musalia said the exercise was too expensive adding the money allocated for it should cater for development projects. The Deputy PM said the system showed “a lack of confidence” among presidential hopefuls who fear that they may not get the 50 per cent-plus-one vote required in the first round.

Justice Minister Eugene Wamalwa was at home in Bungoma. James ole Kiyiapi, a former permanent secretary, attended a conference in Eldoret.

Wamalwa buried his differences with political rivals Moses Wetang’ula. The two Cabinet ministers announced the re-unification of Ford-Kenya and New Ford-Kenya ahead of the General Election.

Addressing mourners during the burial of Bukusu traditional soothsayer John Manguliechi at Kibingei village in Bungoma County, the two conceded that their political differences had taken a huge toll on efforts by the Luhya community to unite. They told their supporters to brace for a major announcement soon.

At the Shalom conference in Eldoret, Prof Kiyiapi stressed the need for reforms that transcend changing the faces of people in various positions. Kiyiapi said reform was about fundamentally changing the manner in which Kenya’s affairs were handled, not merely changing political systems.