Of new political parties and looming legal suits

The race to secure positions of power is heating up ahead of next year’s General Election, and Gitegi, is also headed in the same direction.

Political parties are being registered right left and centre, and the best politicians, those who are skilled at soiling their competitors’ reputation, are having a field day.

It has not rained in weeks and it has thus has become increasingly hard to muddy Harold’s name, but his new political party will do that for him.

I peeped into Sue’s records and realised that there is a political party called Pwahaha. The political party already had a membership exceeding the total number of people in the village. When I saw the figures, I figured out who was behind the scheme.

Pwahaha is an acronym for Party of Winners Alone at Harold Assemblies of Holy Associates.

Its logo is a badly drawn emoji of a man laughing awkwardly.

Harold claims laughter is a sign of happiness. But according to Sue, laughter should only be restricted to hospitals, as the best medicine.

After Harold discovered I had found out he had formed a political party, he made me his chief campaigner to avoid a fight. I would be paid peanuts, literally, which I declined because I am avoiding proteins.

I would redesign the party logo if I so wished, and so I drew a pig (Harold grunted angrily at me and asked me why I was trying to muddy his logo).

He also made me write hundreds of small notes, with the message: “Corn grass. You are now a member of PWAHAHA.”

I knew he meant “congrats” but I did not change that, I did not want to.

In the dead of the night, my recruits and I floated down the village pathways and slipped the notes under people’s doors. I hired some of the most suave night runners in the village, and within hours, every household had a note.

This idea was born out of the surprise notifications that Kenyans last week received informing them that they had been registered into political parties they had never heard of before.

I once remember warning Harold that we can never, even on steroids, match the shenanigans that some of our public institutions are fond of.

When people applied for Huduma Namba cards some two years ago, they barely expected to be sent as far as Madagascar’s Antananarivo to collect their cards after they were ready.

After we had distributed notes forcing people into party membership, news came in that a new political party, that would give Harold a run for his money, was taking the village by storm.

“I hear it is called Suit, and that everyone who accepts to be a member is being given fine wine at the drinking shrine,” I told Harold.

Suit stands for Seriously Underrated but Indefatigable Treaty.

There is only one person who can come up with such a name in the village, of course. I do not like to praise myself.

In the 2022 election, much is at stake.

The autocrat will leave power (he is a self-imposed autocrat; this should be a democracy) and another person, who is able to process information of larger scales and faster, will ascend into the seat.

I will be supporting the other person, whoever it is.

Harold asked me to find out the person who had come up with the rival political party, and to report to him within a week.

“They are mocking me because I cannot afford a suit, but I will still trounce them,” he said. I did not not know which suit he meant, the court or coat one.

When no party leader revealed their faces, Harold said that he would be going to the Court of Uphill, which stands on top of the hill, or to the soup rim court, to get clarity.

But there, he was met with shock from what seemed like a compromised jury.

“You cannot Sue,” he was told. “This party is a legal Suit!”

We knew who the party leader was as soon as the hunter became the hunted.

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