Gears shift on highway to 2017

The 2017 election that seemed far to the euphoric Jubilee team after the controversial 2013 Supreme Court ruling is just around the corner.

Actually, it is just about eight months away.

The political stage is heaving and weaving with the weight of the leaders from all sides as they traverse the country to seek votes.

There are already several indicators that the stakes are high, even to President Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto who at one point had seen it as a walkover exercise, much as in football finals when one team does not turn up to play!

There are three indicators to this hurried decision by Uhuru and Ruto to shed the skin of complacency, roll up the sleeves of their shirts and sweat it out in the sweltering heat of upcountry and urban Kenya at this time of the year.

This has come with its own challenges.

The first, and whose causes we shall come to, is that many Kenyans are likely unhappy and disillusioned, and so there is the feeling of disengagement with and lethargy over the political process.

This manifested itself in the heckling of Ruto and that Jubilee mandarin Aden Duale, who seems not to have much to say these days.

The same happened to the DP in Bomet where his fierce critic and namesake Isaac Ruto has created some form of groundswell within what was Jubilee bloc in the Rift.

The other sign of unease is the zeal and energy with which Uhuru traversed Central Kenya, with one message that voters there need to hear to close ranks: Mr Raila Odinga wants to storm our table and grab the succulent meat and even the bones as well!

Then to buttress the cake for the lethargic yet loyal supporters, he again wrote off billions of debts coffee farmers owed State agencies.

Simple, he just told abracadabra, go pick your title deeds that you had given as deposit! The reasons for this are three-fold!

First, the gale of corruption sweeping across key towers of Government has created the impression that the leadership took too seriously the dictum under the Kibaki era, “It is our turn to eat”.

Jubilee then forgot the Lazaruses reduced to picking the crumbs from under the table.

Then the promises about digital shift and the grand infrastructure projects are exciting to the Jubilee elite but to the impoverished masses living in squalid conditions, it is like asking them to forego food three days then they will feast on all forms of meat, drinks and accompaniments.

Just one example is the Afya House scandal, the effect it has had on doctors' strike, and the state of helplessness it has reduced the poor to!

But this does not mean all is well in Opposition Cord where Mr Raila Odinga has slowly buried Moses Wetang'ula in the sinking sands of Western’s divided and granular politics, and brought in Musalia Mudavadi.

As for his political premium, we need to check with Ababu Namwamba, who is also knee-length in the sand!

Problem here as we have said is that on delegates' election, Raila will beat Kalonzo Musyoka and Wetangula, and even Mudavadi.

This is because of the same logic that infuriated Kalonzo in 2012 when pro-Uhuru allies propped by Kibaki told him to his face that a small river can only join one and not vice versa. That is why both want boardroom negotiation and Raila’s endorsement!

Amidst this confusion comes in talk of a super alliance with US space agency, NASA.

There are questions whether this spacecraft will fly or will implode in the air like Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.

Problem with this uncertainty in CORD and NASA is the fact that it strains the patience of anti-Jubilee supporters, who may in the interim find a new home, albeit reluctantly because there is already a roof, order and running order!

In fact, this hiatus has made some supporters despair on what the next day holds for CORD!

So as things are, every party has its problems and as Jubilee discards the feeling that its victory is fait accompli, Opposition is still yet to agree on the line-up at the starting block.

This is basically the reason Jubilee has built its weaponry on anti-Raila arsenals. But if a day in politics is a week, then the remaining few months are a millennium.

A seismic wave may just be recorded in-between. That is the nature of a two-horse race.