The MP, who is personally mentioned in the text for receiving financial support from Raila’s ODM party, now concedes that Miguna’s assertion about the Ikolomani by-election are indeed true. Previously, Khalwale has publicly bragged of having “floored Raila”.
But describing Raila as a champion of the rights in our Constitution, his advisor on legal affairs Paul Mwangi says the PM has “accepted to bear the hurt of defamation, rather than take action that may discourage advancement and expansion of the field of these rights”.
In essence, Mwangi is saying Raila has accepted to take the flak for the sake of upholding gains of the second liberation struggle.
The Prime Minister, says Mwangi, acknowledges that abuse is a part of enjoyment of basic human rights. “The exercise of any liberty carries with it the danger that it shall be abused. This is actionable in almost all instances but for where the abuse occurs in the process of the scrutiny of a public official,” says the PM’s official.
Kenya’s hope
To others, though, Raila is not just an individual, but a brand and a symbolic banner of the reform struggle onto which the hope of Kenya is inscribed.
“He is our history, which we cannot wish away. He embodies the tree of fruits of democracy, good governance, political creativity, equity, and nationhood – a tree that has been irrigated for decades by his blood and that of his peers – alive and dead,” reacts Eric
Oseno, a governance consultant with Abeingo Group. Oseno equates Raila to a player who has broken many barriers of political culture to design a garment of politics whose fashion the world now celebrates.
“Isn’t it odd that we now want to throw patches at this garment just when Kenyans want to wear it. That we want to shame and place beneath the feet of anti-reformers Raila’s reform credentials whose aroma and taste are on almost every Kenyans glands.”
Asserts Muite: “There are no doubt Raila remains a reformer, and a key player in the struggle, but even as a reformer he must be held accountable.”
