Whatever you do, don't take the country back to the brink

Is it fair to conclude that the handshake was built on shifting sands? Not really, there is still time to make it work. [File, Standard]

Just when we thought that the political class had chosen to put behind their differences for the sake of the country, a new round of skirmishes erupted.

The war of words between the Deputy President William Ruto and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga is worrying and risks turning back the clock to times Kenyans would wish to forget.

The much-touted March 9 ‘Building Bridges’ handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila, to all intents and purposes, ought to have signaled an end to the hostilities that characterised the prolonged 2017 electioneering period that was punctuated by crude political competition.

From what we see, that is not the case. And therein lies the rub.

Raila’s comments from London that Jubilee Party did not win the 2017 General Election has touched a raw nerve, just like his hypothesis that opening up the 2010 Constitution for minimum amendments will guarantee progress and most importantly, peace in the next electoral cycle in 2022.

Ruto’s contention is that opening up the Constitution is a ruse to get Raila, the loser in last year’s presidential election, into Government.

And the President’s retort on Friday that he does not have the time to “run around the country” campaigning for constitutional changes must have emboldened the Ruto side.

Lest we forget; since the handshake, the country has experienced a quiet that had never been seen for a long time. Indeed, there has been noticeable change; trade is booming; Kenyans view each other less as anathema. But alas, the bickering could yet ruin these good prospects.

From the foregoing, it would seem that what the handshake lacked was a consensus on how to address the issues Uhuru and Raila admitted were ruining the promise of Kenya.

Put it another way; both leaders acknowledge that there is a malady, but then do not agree on the cure. That then takes us back to square one.

From the outset there was growing unease that other key stakeholders had been left out of the Building Bridges initiative.

What with the rumblings from NASA affiliate parties; Wiper, Ford-Kenya and ANC that they were not aware of the handshake? So in spite of all the laudatory, a seed of doubt had been planted.

The greatest anomaly of the handshake then could be that it seemingly centred around two people. Yet building bridges and mending broken relations would obviously need everybody on board, not just two men with good intentions.

Could it be that Uhuru and Raila could have connived to lock out Ruto and NASA principals Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetang’ula and other stakeholders from the handshake? And to what end?

In March, soon after the handshake, this newspaper cautioned that the deal should not be an end in itself; that rather, it should be the beginning of the end of the pervasive culture of political gangsterism.

We exhorted the two leaders to institute minimum reforms that will open up, not just the political and social space, but the economy as well, to get as many Kenyans into productive engagement so as to create wealth enough to get around to everyone.

This newspaper was cognisant of the folly of banking too much on the goodwill of two men whose unbridled hunt for office nearly burnt the country.

At the heart of Kenya’s electoral process is the first-past-the-post model that propagates exclusionism. How ironical could it be then that Building Bridges is the project of two leaders.

Indeed, the two leaders needed to shake off the notion that self-preservation was the main motivation of the handshake and convince Kenyans that theirs was a meeting of minds to address their pressing problems; inequality, unemployment, corruption, political intolerance and electoral injustice. Sadly, they have done little to persuade Kenyans so.

Is it fair then to conclude that the handshake was built on shifting sands? Not really, there is still time to make it work. 

Both Uhuru and Raila must work to ensure that the handshake holds and that the country takes the bold steps, if only to avoid a political calamity in the future.

One sure way of doing that is by getting buy-in from everybody.