Perfecting art of political deception

By Kipkoech Tanui

It is hilarious neither President Kibaki nor Martha Karua chose to take the first step towards the other for a greeting.

It is laughable President Kibaki took his seat of power — carried around in a lorry wherever he goes — and did not even once look back to acknowledge Karua’s presence with his dotcom smile.

It is ridiculous that his most vocal defender last year as power was slipping from his hands over claims of a stolen election was just another ordinary mourner at the burial of Habel Nyamu. It all proves power and politics feed on deception and discarding — and recycling is not an option when it comes to Kibaki. Unless of course it is solely to his advantage like when he was forced to — in the least — give back ‘half’ of the ‘loaf’ he is believed to have stolen from Prime Minister Raila Odinga in 2007 elections.

But even then most of the 50 per cent he was to give back died on paper. One fact never changed — he remains the imperial President and is busy spreading his tentacles through the carrot and stick strategy and benign dictatorship.

When I look at Karua, her incessant demands that Samuel Kivuitu just declare the winner of the 2007 elections at KICC pervade the mind. I recall her telling us, when US threatened visa bans against those sabotaging the power-sharing talks, America was not heaven because her home was Kenya — then on fire. Memories of things I have heard claimed she did to "defend and uphold" the Kibaki Presidency inevitably come to mind.

I imagine her at State House whispering to Kibaki what to do with Raila, William Ruto, Najib Balala, James Orengo, Anyang’ Nyong’o and all other ODM’s tumutus (midgets). I also conjure up in my mind https://cdn.standardmedia.co.ke/images of the legendary sneer on her face when those she can’t tolerate speak.

And so in Kerugoya, as the burial progressed, the rift between her and Kibaki appeared to widen. It is in her that we ordinary folks should understand what goes on in the mind of the politician — whose profession is disparaged as second in age to that most despicable flesh trade. It is also thankless.

Short-running contracts

She is a study in Kenya’s streak of use and dump policy. But unlike retired President Moi, Kibaki is not known to recycle those he has thrown to the bin.

And so Karua, Matere Keriri, Chris Murungaru, Alfred Getonga and Stanley Murage are certain about one thing — Uncle Mwai will not pick up the phone and ask how they are faring any time soon. But forever they will carry the burden history thrust on their backs the day they met Kibaki. Moi, too, had his retinue with short-running contracts like Kuria Kanyingi when he was unleashed on Josephat Karanja.

But to be fair to Kibaki and Martha, two things must be said about our politics. First, there are no permanent friends but interests, and so the ideal slogan for your average politician is faithfully, Me Myself and My own interest.

Two, Karua like Kenneth Matiba in Moi’s time, did not give Kibaki the chance to humiliate her with sacking on radio. She decided to bite the bullet and chart her own political course, leaving the likes of Kalonzo Musyoka, Uhuru Kenyatta and George Saitoti clinging to Kibaki’s coat tails and praying he would anoint them the Gema candidate in 2012. And so Karua does not fit the picture of Murungaru and the rest of the President’s buddies who did not see the end coming.

She calculated her exit, blamed it on losing support of the President, and decided it was time to try another route to State House. She may not have anticipated her action would be seen as defiance of the highest order, and subsequent treatment as a political leper.

Another thing is obvious to me; she would not care much how Kibaki and his sidekicks treat her. It is her nature to treat this as trivia much as Kibaki would term those who walk away from him as chicken droppings.

Which begs the question; do we know our politicians well and should they blindly enslave us? Take Uhuru of the first term of the Kibaki that beat him 2002. He was then an expert critic.

Today, he is the court poet of the man despite running on the vantage platform of generational change. In 2007, he threw his weight behind Kibaki, who was striding into his 80s. The reciprocation he expects will be Kibaki’s support in 2012. Ask yourself where this flip-flopping leaves his diehard supporters.

Blind arrogance

But because Kibaki and Karua, and all of us claim to be patriots and nationalists, I leave you to ponder what British-born US journalist Sydney J Harris, said: "The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war."

Sadly we have very few of both the nationalists and patriots in politics. Those who lay down their lives for politicians forgetting they change alliances and friends for self-sake, are like the people Mark Twain had in mind when he said: "Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first."

The writer is The Standard’s Managing Editor, Daily Editions.

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