The other side of Mau

By Jibril Adan

President Kibaki and Prime minister Raila Odinga will on Friday each take a spade and plant a tree in Mau Forest, crowning a new political chapter in Kenya.

The event will literally turn a new page in which the post-Mau falling out among politicians as well as birth of new alliances could have a pervasive influence on the road to the 2012 General Election.

The spadework will be symbolic not just because of the intriguing display of a good working relationship between the President and PM, but also in how far it will go to show how much Kenya’s political playing field has changed since 2007 election and subsequent violence.

A forest guard keeps vigil at the Mau Forest to keep away encroachers. Photo: File/Standard

What was initially a difference in position between Raila Odinga and his deputy in the Orange party and Minister for Agriculture Mr William Ruto over evictions from Mau has now turned into another warring platform for politicians.

In 2002, Kenya’s turning was President Moi’s surprise decision to bypass the well-grounded politicians in Kanu to settle on Mr Uhuru Kenyatta — who had never held an elected seat — to be his preferred successor.

All-out-war

This led to the birth of ‘Uhuru Project’, which was stalled by voters following the reunion of opposition politicians. At the centre of the reunification was Raila and the beneficiary was Kibaki.

The platform on which 2007 General Election was fought stood on the MoU Kibaki agreed with Raila’s side but ignored, culminating in the 2005 fall-out and subsequent confrontation in the November referendum on the constitution.

It was here that Kenya’s ‘Banana’ and ‘Orange’ strangleholds took shape, leading to the all-out-war in the 2007 elections. The outcome was blurred and the election a mess, and a power-sharing deal was brokered in which the two main protagonists, Kibaki and Raila, shared power.

The powerful forces behind Raila included Ruto, who this year openly fell-out with the PM and began hacking his own path, hopefully to the presidency in 2012. The politics of Mau Forest conservation provided Raila’s political enemies across parties the platform to close ranks with 2012 in mind.

The first is Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, who fell out with Raila before 2007 elections, as Raila’s side complained their victory was stolen by Kibaki, walked his party in the president’s half-Cabinet.

Preferred successor

Secondly, there is Kanu Chairman Uhuru Kenyatta, who also ditched alliance with Raila, albeit before the elections, to support Kibaki.

Said to be the preferred successor to Kibaki among the old and moneyed class in Central Kenya, Uhuru is believed to have frustrated Kalonzo’s foray into the region with argument he ‘saved’ Kibaki and it was now the turn of his ‘people’ to reciprocate.

The politics of Mau has not only eroded the Kalenjin community’s strong support for Raila but has seen Ruto fight a war that inexplicably put him on one side with retired President Moi, with whom he had fell out with by working with Raila and decamping from Kanu’s bandwagon.

But the most notable impact of the Mau politics — which long ago spilled over from conservation issue -— is what will be left of Raila’s Orange Democratic Movement. It boasted of numerical superiority in Parliament and ranked itself on equal footing with America’s President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party and Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.

But today it is a querulous House and it is not easy to rate Raila’s own strength and that of his ODM steamship, as well as how far it will take him in 2012. He himself, as well as his loyalists, have been chest-thumping saying the party is intact and on the roll to power.

The snowball effect of the fallout over Mau has spilled out of ODM and is acting as a catalyst that is changing the political landscape of the country. For ODM, Mau is already a spectre hanging over the largest party in the country, which is being viewed as wounded and fragmented.

Worse still, its flag-bearer at the Coast and among Islamic communities, Tourism minister Najib Balala is on Ruto’s side and his attacks on Raila, who likes using analogies and riddles, have been direct. "The era of vitendawili (riddles) is over," is his main anti-Raila catchword.

The fury of the Mau’s political wave can be discerned from the fact has not even been glossed over by the politics of the Final Harmonised Draft Constitution.

Majority of leaders from the Rift Valley have stated their working relationship with the ODM party leader has been poisoned and may be beyond salvage.

This declaration acted as a standing invitation for other political groups to reach out to the Rift Valley block in preparation for 2012.

Even though Raila insists Mau issue is only about conservation, many disagree with him and are leveling a medley of accusations against him.

In some quarters it is claimed Mau issue is a veiled attempt to exact revenge on former President Moi who happens to be associated with an expansive tea plantation on the edge of Mau Forest. Moi’s name was dragged into the controversy several times by Government leaders while the retired president tried to keep silent.

Moi, after a long silence, conceded he owned 25 per cent of tea processed at Kiptagich and that the land was given to him in the 1970s by Narok County Council.

National Heritage Minister William ole Ntimama was then council chairman.

Arm-twisted

Later, Ntimama claimed he was arm-twisted to allocate the land to Moi. But curiously Moi was then a VP sidelined by Central Kenya politicians and President Jomo Kenyatta’s loyalitsts.

The Mau controversy has had the effect of rekindling relationships that were severed. In his fight for compensation for Mau evictees , Ruto appears to be at the same time defending the former president.

For some politicians, Mau does not have the capacity to define the country’s politics while others contend it has defined the direction politics will take.

Kisumu Town MP Olago Aluoch says Mau politics will only serve to make Raila popular among communities in the country and catapult his political ambitions for 2012.

"The Mau politics will not be the ultimate defining factor in the country’s politics but it will shape and give Kenyans opportunity to understand their leaders and make a wise choice on their next president,’ says Olago

But Cherangany MP Joshua Kuttuny says the Mau politics has started defining the political landscape of the country with possible alliances coming up.

"We could have new parties being formed having politicians from various parties but with a common agenda. Watch this space and you will see the change in the country’s political terrain," he added.

Kuttuny says Mau and The Hague would be pivotal in the country’s next election.

"Mau and The Hague are the two critical issues to determine the country’s politics and you can watch how the various parties are reacting and acting on the issues," he concluded.