They are afraid of and for Kalonzo

By Okech Kendo

They may be afraid of Kalonzo Musyoka, but some Kenyans should be afraid for the Vice-President.

Kalonzo and his supporters say those who claim he is on presidential campaigns three years ahead of time are scared. They are afraid, they say, of Kalonzo who lost 2007 presidential election only because his votes were stolen.

He claims some of his votes disappeared when William Ruto also declared he was running for president. A candidate whose votes could disappear so easily deserves pity. For there is no guarantee his votes won’t disappear again when competition intensifies.

Internal Security Minister George Saitoti is afraid for Kalonzo, who is hot on the Kibaki Succession campaigning trail, by plotting tribal alliances, when the displaced are still stranded in the rain, one year on.

Charity Ngilu, who retained her Kitui Central seat against a Kalonzo onslaught, is not afraid of him. Neither are Kilome MP Harun Mwau, Kathiani’s Wavinya Ndeti and Kitui West’s Charles Nyamai. Mwau, Ngilu, Nyamai and Ndeti defied Kalonzo when he was still an unknown quantity.

Now that he is ‘Mr Eight Per Cent’, according to pollster Synovate, Kalonzo is a candidate to be afraid for. Kalonzo had wanted his supporters to teach Ngilu a lesson, but it was to him they said: Tribal support cannot take a presidential candidate anywhere beyond conspiracy range.

Ngilu is afraid for Kalonzo because the VP is banking on Uhuru Kenyatta for Prime Minister, and Saitoti as VP in an alliance he plans to lead. Although Kalonzo has no room for Ruto, he badly wants him in his corner.

Ngilu was present when the late Kijana Wamalwa was told it is small rivers that flow into big ones. It was Wamalwa’s Ford-Kenya that flowed into Mwai Kibaki’s DP in 2002. PNU is unlikely to flow into ODM-Kenya, now that the VP is dreaming up a coalition structure without consulting Uhuru, Saitoti and Ruto.

Fifth possibility

But the major signal that could make some afraid of Kalonzo is from John Michuki. The Minister for Environment has outlived four regimes. He was with wabeberu, Kenyatta, Moi and now Kibaki. He is still ready to invest on a fifth possibility — Kalonzo.

Michuki, he of the rattlesnake infamy, is hissing in Kalonzo’s corner, ready to coil around the Mwingi North MP’s neck.

Michuki recalls the VP rescued them when they needed an accomplice to advance the 2007 presidential election plot. With more than half the country ablaze, the President’s Party of National Unity, which had 40 of 210 MPs, needed seat raising to validate a claim to victory. Kalonzo, whose party had 15 MPs, was ready to deal in the face of blood and teargas.

Now, Michuki says, it is their turn to repay the Kalonzo-ODM-Kenya debt. It is not clear whether others around Kibaki share Michuki’s indebtedness to Kalonzo.

But that Michuki recalls Kalonzo saved the Kibaki regime is sign enough of the kind of president the Mwingi North MP would be. If Kalonzo needs the Michuki clique to be president, he would be a president with a millstone around his neck.

The possibility of such continuity would make right thinking Kenyans afraid of and for Kalonzo.

Voters should also be afraid for the man caught in the past when the country is demanding reforms. The Kalonzo time warp exploded during the Ringera reappointment rage in August.

"The President is both the Head of State and Government and he appoints any of us," Kalonzo had said, in defence of the President’s miscalculation. Parliament and the public overruled the President.

But in the defence Kalonzo remembered not to say, "he appointed me so I must support him" even after breaching the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act 2003.

If the Michuki clique drives Kalonzo through to the 2012 General Election, the VP would be the anointed ‘project’ of the propertied class that has traversed the Kenyatta, Nyayo and Kibaki regimes.

This would make the ‘wiper kid’ a status quo candidate.

It was Michuki who confessed in 2003 that their interest in a new constitution was limited to ejecting President Moi. With Kibaki in State House, there was no need for a new constitution. It was, therefore, not surprising when the Government bastardised the Bomas Draft Constitution to create the Wako Draft, which was rejected in the 2005 referendum.

With Kalonzo in the pocket of self-styled ‘liver jugglers’, it would be business as usual. A leader who talks change but consorts with reactionaries attracts pity.

Politics of conspiracy

Michuki was Minister for Internal Security when the lights went out. Michuki was also the author of the ban on live broadcast on the Sunday December 30, 2007, when Kenya collapsed. It is Michuki now reminding us they needed props, which they found in Kalonzo.

That is the Kalonzo who wants to become president, but is keener, denials notwithstanding, on Triple K for K-2012. This is the man whose allies wanted disputed presidential election results declared so they could start negotiating a coalition.

Now, it is Kalonzo claiming that the most horrible type of Government is a grand coalition — the very cocktail politics of conspiracy imposed on Kenya and one that he is a principal figure. There is reason to be afraid of and for a man who jumped into an alliance of blood to validate an assault on democracy.

The writer is The Standard’s Managing Editor, Quality and Production.

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