Kalonzo should stop playing second fiddle to Uhuru, Ruto

By Billow Kerrow

Politics is the art of the impossible, or so they say. The humiliation Vice- President Kalonzo Musyoka suffered in the G7 Alliance this past week just exposes politicians for what they are: No permanent friends, just interests. When the latter is done with, you are worthless and must be discarded. And when you trip, they will help you go down and then trample on you. Unless, of course, you quickly get yourself up after the fall and dust up.

Backstabbing is deemed to be a political strategy, but the payback for a favour is often long in coming, if at all.

Kalonzo helped the Kibaki alliance in 2008 in taking power after the disputed election in an action many Kenyans at the time saw as opportunistic and even betrayal.

According to the WikiLeaks reports not denied by either party, the President and Uhuru Kenyatta promised Kalonzo that they would support him for president in 2012 in return for the support he gave them early 2008.

The current Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo was then very vocal in his support for that action, rebutting accusations by the ODM brigade that they were reaping where they did not sow.

Shortly after The Hague process started, Kalonzo went on a very elaborate shuttle diplomacy around the world to try and save Uhuru and Ruto from being tried in The Hague. He may not have succeeded in the UN, but he convinced the African Union and several other regional forums to have the cases tried at home.

He stuck his neck out for the G7 leaders at a time most Kenyans, according to opinion polls, and the media were harshly rooting for ICC. His lieutenant, Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo, tried in vain to push for a local tribunal.

During the referendum campaigns, the VP flirted so powerfully with Ruto’s ‘No’ team that he was christened ‘a watermelon’.

He wanted the Constitution but his heart was also with Ruto and Uhuru who did not want to support a Constitution Raila had run away with. It took Kibaki’s intervention to convince Kalonzo and other ‘watermelons’ to join the ‘Yes’ team. The damage was done, and Kalonzo came out with egg on his face.

He waged a bitter war against the ODM leadership by undermining the National Accord principles on power sharing and took several unsavoury positions on national issues, all ostensibly to please or support the Uhuru-Ruto axis.

To become a master, a politician poses as a servant. He should be forgiven if he thought that maxim holds true in our country’s political landscape.

His crime? For hanging around like the proverbial vulture, waiting for the indictment of Uhuru and Ruto.

To be fair to the man, he did announce publicly in Eldoret a week earlier that he will not want to be a president if ICC indicts his two colleagues. To sum it all, there is nothing the man has not done to endear himself to Uhuru-Ruto to get their endorsement.

When his crony, Johnstone Muthama, wondered loudly ‘what if?’ he was vilified and dumped as the Chief Whip. What if the two gentlemen are not indicted? They will be a formidable team and can clinch power without Kalonzo’s support. But what if they are indicted and lose the appeals? This is the scenario Kalonzo and company are barred from entertaining in their minds by the G7 team. For the alliance members, any thoughts about this scenario are treasonable and must not be discussed, even hypothetically.

Never mind that Uhuru and Ruto may not run after all if indicted, but the alliance thinks Kalonzo must simply wait, and punish his loud-mouthed lieutenants who opine otherwise. He may just do that, but can he afford to continue playing second fiddle to the duo when the writing is on the wall?

The writer is a former MP for Mandera Central and political economist