By Ng’ang’a Gicumbi

The recently concluded Kanu delegates’ conference reminded me of President Moi’s statement that ‘Kanu iko na wenyewe (Kanu has its owners)’.

Whatever Moi meant by the ambiguous phrase is anybody’s guess, but he meant the Independence party was not a mass one as was wrongly perceived, but rather a ‘productive idea’ of some ‘unknown’ people.

That said, the question we need to ask ourselves is not why Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta ditched Kanu, but rather what he has carried away after ditching it.

A story will help illustrate this. During the despotic reign of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin in Russia, a peasant applied for membership of the ruling Communist Party. The secretary first asked him a few questions: ‘If the party were to ask you for a donation of 100 rubles, would you comply unhesitatingly? ‘Yes.’ ‘And if the party were to request you to enlist your only son in the Red Army?’ ‘I would enlist him.’

‘What if the party were to ask you to donate your cow to help in the fight against the country’s enemies? Would you do so?’ ‘No.’

‘Do you mean to tell me that you would give 100 rubles or an only son but not a cow?’ asked the bewildered party official. ‘But comrade, I have no cow,’ came back a subdued reply. In 1983, Amos Traversky and Daniel Kahneman, both of whom are accomplished psychologists, published, in the Psychological Review, a theory that has continued to have an impact on America’s foreign policy. They called this Prospect Theory.

In theoretical terms, Prospect Theory argues that individuals tend to be risk averse in the domain of gains, and risk seeking in the domain of losses. Part of what determines whether the situation is considered to be one of "gains" or "losses" depends on how the options are "framed" or constructed prior to choice.

Decisions often take place under conditions of risk, where something of value may be at stake. Risk is inhered in any situation where there is uncertainty, and even more so when the stakes are high or the prize is big.

Any decision made under conditions of certainty is trivial almost by definition, as the outcome and its value are known in advance or their consequences are not significant.

Because losses loom larger than gains, Prospect Theory posits that it is more difficult for people to adjust to losses than to gains. As a result, more energy will be spent trying to avoid or recoup losses than will be devoted to consolidating or obtaining new gains.

The phenomenon of loss aversion is exacerbated by other psychological tendencies as well. The losses of Kanu are there for all to see. In fact, its resilience has continued to baffle many who had dug its grave following the 2002 electoral loss.

It is my take that considering the realities of the moment, Uhuru may have decided to bite the bullet after realising it was a loss to him to continue associating with Kanu. When he was its chief, he was, like the Russian peasant, willing to give it ‘anything’ and ‘everything’ precisely because he didn’t give it. But when push came to shove, he was not ready to part with his ‘only cow’, because it’s the only thing he has politically speaking.

I aver that Uhuru’s ‘cow’, the one he couldn’t risk giving Kanu, which is also his main gain, is his remaining Kikuyu constituency within Kanu. And this is why.

In the last two polls since Kanu’s ouster, Uhuru’s Kanu has been outvoted by newer parties in areas where it once held sway. Kanu was whitewashed by PNU and upstart parties in 2007, and that its candidate for Gatundu North, Uhuru’s neighbouring constituency, lost to the incumbent who ran on PICK ticket by 12,482 votes.

Add to this the fact that he could not dethrone his other detractors, Peter Kenneth of Gatanga and Martha Karua of Gichugu, then one can somewhat form a picture of why he couldn’t risk his ‘only cow’ his present Kikuyu-Kanu and the prospective ‘non-Kanu Kikuyu’ who make his name relevant in Kenya’s ruthless political landscape to an odyssey to Siberia.

That’s why Kanu will need to do a massive reconstructive surgery without an Uhuru hangover if it needs to regain some, if not its entire former glow.

The writer is a behavioral scientist