Mr Uhuru Kenyatta must be a happy man; his party has won two seats in Parliament in the recent by-elections. Not that he has been a sad chap. The river of luck has always followed him. He works hard too, or so he says.
The only jolt in his life must be that fever-causing mosquito from The Hague buzzing around his ears – and the old baggage lost in 2002. But as he vows, even this little distraction he will soon crush with the hammer of truth, likely to be encrusted in his shoe’s sole.
However, like I have said before, you can’t begrudge a man just because he was born with a silver spoon. We signed no MoU with God to be born with equal fortunes and chance in life.
Life is not like the Olympics where everyone is given the fairest chance possible to stay ahead of the park. But this is not to downplay the unfairness of a system that gives a select few the springboard to stay ahead along with their descendants, forever!
Uhuru, we are told, is toasting to the good heavens for TNA’s “changing fortunes”. Parties like William Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) and United Democratic Front, which is, in premier league style, “on loan” to Moses ‘Messi’ Mudavadi, so far have no MP in Parliament, just those waiting to join in. URP and UDF are TNA’s age-mates, so on this score, despite the streak of bad luck that led to the by-elections, Uhuru, they claim, has proven a point.
I avoided civic seats because that is too small data to be a good scientific sample; wards are not a miniscule of Kenya. Even if Mudavadi’s party lost in Bukura, if he was running, the same guys might have voted for him.
The same applies to TNA win in a ward in Eldoret, even if Ruto was running the community which is dominant in this town the ward would have voted against him, unless of course he was Uhuru’s running mate! The thing called tribe is what greases our political engine and money is what keeps it running.
I have left out Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Ndhiwa constituency because no one expected his man to lose anyway. Ethnic configuration was just right on his side, even if the ODM ticket holder might have crooked his way into nomination. So it is of little value in evaluating Raila’s strength politically.
Now as Uhuru devours his victory, we need to ask ourselves what we have learned from these by-elections. The obvious one is our politics is still tribal based.
The Kangema TNA victory, reinforced by the late John Michuki’s tacit support for Uhuru, a trend upped by his family, therefore proving that in Mount Kenya region, Kenyatta’s son is king. He is the man entrusted with the fight for the knife once held by his father, that slices the national cake. This therefore means the contest was in Kajiado North, which is a cosmopolitan constituency set to be split in next year.
Tribal chieftains
But even then it was not much of a contest because the area is dominated by Kikuyu community, who obviously voted for Uhuru more than Moses Ole Sakuda. There are also the Maasai, who had five candidates.
