Handshake is a platform throughwhich elite are jostling for power

The recent announcement by the Wiper Party that it will work with Jubilee is hardly surprising, and shows the increasing lack of choices in the country’s democratic landscape.

While opposition parties are rival formations to the governing party, from which they hope to take power one day the Wiper party, like the Orange Democratic Movement, its NASA counterpart, has chosen cooperation with Jubilee, in a process that imperils the country’s multiparty status. Opposition leader, Raila Odinga, led in what has become a capitulation by the opposition when, in March, he was involved in an unexpected public display of amity with President Uhuru Kenyatta, now referred to as the handshake.

Because fellow leaders in NASA were excluded from the handshake, it was unclear what their reactions would be. Together with other leaders in NASA, Kalonzo was initially cagy about the handshake, a position that has now ended with the announcement that his party will now work with Jubilee. The question though is why, under the circumstances, Kalonzo has chosen cooperation with Jubilee.

Emerging from another disputed election the opposition had chosen resistance against Jubilee, before the surprise handshake, which knocked the stuffing out of that approach. With Raila now working with Jubilee and, therefore, unavailable to support a more oppositional style if Kalonzo had chosen one, the former Vice President would have had to shoulder the responsibility of leading the opposition line on his own. Leading the opposition is a demanding job and Kalonzo would have considered this when in his decision to take the much easier option of working with Jubilee.

The consequence of Wiper’s decision is that when faced with an open field which its ODM counterpart created when it deserted the opposition ranks, Wiper is unable to seize the opportunity to offer new leadership and has chosen to follow ODM into government.

A further reason explains the choice taken by Wiper. After three contested elections, two of which Kalonzo was adjudged to have lost when sharing a ticket with Raila, it is increasingly clear that the country’s electoral decisions are not made by the people through the ballot but by an elite in boardrooms. Because Raila’s political career has been about fighting the capture of elections, his handshake with Kenyatta was surprising and signified that he had given up that fight.

Probably based on an assessment of the cold facts which have made him conclude that a new fight for electoral justice would fail like Raila before, Kalonzo’s decision to work with Jubilee is understandable. It signifies his concession that the only political game in town is the one that Kenyatta and his backers control, and that rather than an open fight in the 2022 election, he would now rather seek elite accommodation with his rivals.

There is significance in the fact that it is Deputy President William Ruto, rather than Kenyatta, that has welcomed Wiper into Jubilee. It now seems Ruto and Kalonzo have entered into a dalliance of their own, that claims the cover that was provided by the handshake between the President and Raila.

Since Ruto, like Kalonzo, was not involved in the handshake, the two are now sending a message that they will not sit around and wait whatever fate the handshake between Kenyatta and Raila is supposed to consign them to. A dalliance between Kalonzo and Ruto would be a demonstration that they are players in their own right and have the capacity to get into their own deal-making, which can rival the deal-making between the principals in their respective parties.

Secondly, by turning to each other and away from their respective principals, Ruto and Kalonzo would hope that this can increase their political leverage and thus their ability to negotiate firstly in their respective parties, but also outside. Ruto hopes that an alliance with Kalonzo would reduce his reliance on the support he hopes to inherit from Kenyatta’s power base and, on his part, Kalonzo hopes that working with Ruto will not only increase his own appeal but also reduce the influence that Raila currently enjoys.

In all this, electoral reforms, one of the promises made by the handshake, are not a priority or even possible. While a significant size of the population is operating on the basis that the handshake holds the key to Kenya’s future happiness, nothing could be further from the truth. In the end, the handshake is a platform through which the country’s elite are jostling for power. By going into an arrangement with Kenyatta, Raila vacated his position as an opposition leader.

While Kalonzo could have made different choices, he has chosen to join Raila in supporting Jubilee, and it is more than likely that other opposition leaders will also join. The consequence is that without an opposition, there is nobody left to speak for the people. Further, unable to achieve open politics, the opposition has given up, and Kenya is a de facto one party state again.

- The writer is Executive Director KHRC. gkegoro@gmail.com