Are YK92 players regrouping for power?

By Juma Kwayera

The key players in the Youth for Kanu 92 that ensured former ruling party Kanu’s victory in the first multi-party polls appear to be regrouping to grab the country’s leadership.

Agriculture Minister William Ruto and Kaddu Chairman Cyrus Jirongo who were instrumental in Kanu’s win in the 1992 elections now seem to be edging closer to each other.

Together with other youthful politicians, they are now pushing for a "generational shift", which pits them against older politicians.

The push has seen Ruto, the more prominent of the two, join hands with Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta.

Intra-party disagreements in both PNU and ODM over issues with potential to break up the organisations has over the past month taken the shape of the pre-1992 discourse, when reformists were tagged by the Kanu regime as greedy and dictators.

Chairman of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee Bonny Khalwale says the realignment is taking a familiar pattern that was witnessed between 1992 and 2002.

"This is a group of non-reformists. It appears they were on a sabbatical in other parties and when their dirty past faded from collective national memory, we are seeing their reunion disguised as reformists," says Dr Khalwale, the Ikolomani MP.

Overnight millionaires

But Jirongo, the current Lugari MP, dismisses the allegations as mere stereotypes by political rivals who are running scared of the newfound alliance.

"Show me one politician today who was not a member of Kanu. Except for the novices of yesterday, we all came from Kanu, and some who enjoy real power today were in the party from as early as 1960," Jirongo told Tuesday Politics.

YK’92 is synonymous with the economic crisis that was triggered by World Bank and International Monetary Fund-imposed structural adjustment programmes and suspension of balance of payment support.

The action by the Bretton Woods institutions created a void that the Kanu administration used to print illegal currency for the 1992 General Election.

Over a span of between five and eight years after dumping Kanu, the former YK’92 leaders are now calling the shots. However, their ‘transformation’ to reformists has elicited massive interest in equal measure just as their past recalcitrance in institutional and political reform processes.

Khalwale claims the founders of YK’92 cannot be trusted with power as the group pilfered huge sums of money from State coffers and invested in real estate. Without naming names, he says those who played prominent roles in the lobby became overnight millionaires as soon as the widely derided outfit was formed.

"These are characters who became instant millionaires. They cannot account for their wealth, which they are now using to bribe young and relatively poor MPs to dance to their whims. Who can trust them with reforms, let alone the reins of power?" the PAC chairman asks.

But Jirongo terms such sentiments as "unfortunate and misplaced".

"It is part of a wider desperate scheme to punch holes in the new political realignment. Among those worried about the new alliance are politicians who served in Kanu and made away with huge amounts."

Separately, Cherangany MP Joshua Kuttuny observes that it is not the alliance’s primary concern to talk in defence of YK’92, as individuals behind the Kanu outfit’s leadership "can speak for themselves".

Common ideology

Stating that the new alliance has nothing to do with YK’92, the vocal MP clarifies that most of those joining hands are youthful legislators with a common ideology to give Kenyans fresh leadership.

"I am not and was never a member of the so-called YK’92. Many others like (Saboti MP) Eugene (Wamalwa) and (Konoin MP, Dr Julius) Kones were still in school when this group was operational," he told Tuesday Politics.

The MP also singles Lands Assistant minister Bifwoli Wakoli as a crucial member of the new alliance who was not in active politics by then.

But Wakoli says the fact that he has been attending harambees with MPs from Rift Valley does not mean he was in any alliance with them.

"We meet in fund-raisers and that is all. Whether there is an alliance to emerge I do not know. People should not read much out of fund-raisers organised by politicians," he says.

Former Kabete MP Paul Muite, who played a leading role in the ‘second liberation’ that saw Section 2(a) of the Constitution deleted to provide for pluralism, says the circumstances of the ongoing debate on the constitution are akin to those that obtained in 1992.

Tribal clashes

When the crusade for multi-partyism was intensifying Kanu looked poised to lose control of the reins of Government. Gerrymandering and the ‘siege syndrome’ took hold in national politics.

"It is as if we did not learn anything from the clashes in 1992, 1997 and last year. They should focus on reforms and stop jostling for power. The reality is this time round if we fail on the reform agenda, there will never be 2012," Muite, a founder-member of the pressure political group Ford, which unlatched Kanu’s dominance, says.

Muite says the methods and forces that were used to frustrate reforms over the past 15 years are back at work in full force.

Mr Mwangi Kiunjuri, the Assistant Minister for Water and Laikipia West MP, reads mischief and dishonesty in the Kalenjin-Kikuyu-Kamba alliance.

"This Kanu that has all along defeated the reform agenda regrouping? A donkey disguised as a horse will always bray, fall on its back and wriggle in sand legs up. The corrupt Kanu cabal is regrouping and splashing handouts to MPs who cannot think for themselves to derail the national agenda," says Kiunjuri.

But instead Kuttuny points an accusing finger at the opposing wing, claiming it is they, including the PM, who served in the Kanu Government.

He says it is difficult to find any key political figure in Kenya today who never served under the Kanu regime some years back, whether in public or civil service.

"It is shameful that a seasoned politician like (Regional Development minister, Fred) Gumo, who has spent most of his political career in Kanu and who was leader of the notorious ‘Jeshi la Mzee’ can also poke fun at former Kanu operatives," reacts Kuttuny in reference to the minister’s allegations that YK’92 had regrouped.