How the opposition became Uhuru’s strongest pillar

Prominent political rivals are tearing each other apart to catch the eye of a resurgent president in the dying days of his reign.

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s purge in Jubilee Party is at once an initiative to bring down his deputy, William Ruto, an assault on democracy, and an emasculation of the political opposition in the country. 

Billed as an effort to enforce party discipline, the onslaught against Ruto and his lieutenants looks set to discover its way into spaces outside Jubilee, with far reaching consequences. Already, the Raila Odinga-led ODM party has picked up the script from Jubilee and has begun purges of its own, both in ODM and in the moribund National Super Alliance (NASA). 

It is indeed Raila’s contention that NASA is dead and of little political premium to anyone. In a radio interview this week, Raila stated that NASA was dead. He went on to say that the time has come when NASA constituent parties should feel free to seek fresh alliances both for short- and long-term interests.

It is instructive, however, that while pronouncing NASA dead, ODM was nonetheless calling a NASA Parliamentary Group meeting to reorganise the party in the National Assembly.

The NASA Parliamentary Group invite went out as a text message from ODM National Chairman John Mbadi, in his capacity as Leader of Minority in the assembly.

It read: “Mheshimiwa, this is to inform you that there will be a NASA Parliamentary Group meeting on Thursday, May 28, 2020, at National Assembly Main Chamber at 2pm. The agenda is to discuss the following: House leadership, and reorganisation of Parliamentary Committees. Please be punctual. Thanks, John Mbadi, Leader of Minority.”

The contradiction

The contradiction between Raila’s pronouncement of the death of NASA and his national chairman’s invite to the NASA PG members to a group meeting points to the dysfunction in the opposition, subsequent to the March 9, 2018 handshake.

At the handshake, President Kenyatta and Raila pledged to work together for the greater good of the nation, following a nine-point agenda. In the integuments of the agenda was the strengthening of democracy in the country.

Talking about inclusivity, their agenda stated in part, “We have failed to appreciate that we are as the fingers of the hand: weak alone, and as strong as a fist when folded together.”

The joint Uhuru-Raila fist has been hard at work over the past 26 months, and the results are becoming clear.

This week Jubilee Secretary General Raphael Tuju told Kenyans through a TV interview, “We need singularity of purpose to face the economic challenges because of Covid-19. We expect every hand (to be) on the deck.”

In an interview with a different station, Tuju said, “Those who do not agree with the president’s agenda will absolutely not be tolerated.”

The emerging scenario is one where self-seeking opportunism in the political class in the two houses of Parliament is increasingly led by thoughts on what individuals can get out of the contestations than by anything else.

When a special sitting of the Senate met on May 22 to debate the proposal to dethrone Tharaka Nithi Senator Kithure Kindiki as Deputy Speaker, curious drama played itself on the floor of the Senate. One speaker after the other paid glowing tribute to the Deputy Speaker. They particularly praised the way he had presided over debate in the Senate, and his politics and comportment outside the office of Deputy Speaker. Yet the same people voted overwhelmingly for his ouster after that.

It has since emerged that part of the reason were X-files that the State has on legislators and other senior State officials. Many have thrust their hands in public tills under their watch, a matter that is often used as a bait against them, whenever they seem to take stances that are contrary to desired State positions. That way, they may express different desires as happened last week.

Yet when the time to act comes, they will do things quite differently. Beyond X-files, however, is the desire for personal glory and grandeur. A lot of horse trading went on before the removal of Senator Kindiki, with his colleagues – including some considered close friends – planning how they would redistribute the seats in the Senate following his then impending removal. The machinations were still going on at the time of filing this report.

Meaningful impact

Opposition MPs having given up on the possibility of making any meaningful impact in both houses, appetite is now almost the only energy left, with very few exceptions.

In one such appetitive drive, members of Ford Kenya have angled greedily for the Minority Whip seat, occupied by Kiminini MP Chris Wamalwa at the time of this writing.

Even after assuring their party leadership that they would not be party to the removal of Wamalwa, who is being haunted for his perceived proximity to the deputy president, a number of Ford Kenya MPs visited Mbadi’s office in Parliament to lobby him for the position. 

The same has been the case on committees, where a number of NASA MPs were slated for axing. Members augment their earnings with what they rake in from committee meetings. According to the Standing Orders of both houses, each member is supposed to sit on at least two committees. Much jostling and lobbying goes on for these committees, mostly with the allowances as the attractions.

Other attendant perquisites include overseas trips, with attractive out-of-pocket expense allowances. Beyond that, sitting on certain committees can allow a member to influence allocation of State projects and other opportunities to their constituency. The MP can then use the projects and opportunities as campaigning chips at the next election.

The distribution of committee positions, expected to be firmed up this and next week, should hugely determine just how further the atrophied NASA could survive in its current stupor. The coalition agreement that brought together ODM, Amani National Congress, Ford Kenya, Wiper Democratic Movement and Chama Cha Mashinani, states that the coalition will last up to the end of the life of the present Parliament. Conversely, should up to three member parties leave the coalition, then it will stand dissolved. 

The handshake, and before it the controversial Raila ‘oath of office’, rattled NASA. Its summit has never met since the day before the ‘swearing in’. Yet nobody has the courage to call the others’ bluff and quit.

The handshake was a master stroke that sent the opposition into paralysis. It tamed Raila and his street protests. It blocked his eyes and ears to the goings on in government and sealed his lips, except when he speaks in defence of the government. 

It is, therefore, the case of an opposition that is too eager to please the State, the proverbial outsider who weeps louder than the bereaved. In Parliament, members wait to be guided on how to vote. The oath of parliamentary office no longer counts for anything.

Before they can embark on their legislative tour of duty after an election or nomination to Parliament, members swear that they will act conscientiously throughout their career. This is to say that they will govern themselves in line with their conscience. Both at the level of debate and voting in both houses, however, it is difficult to witness conscience on the part of a majority of the legislators.

In a sense, what has happened to Parliament and to the opposition is a throwback to the 1960s, when President Jomo Kenyatta was in charge.

Daniel Branch recalls how national unity was the mantra around which the politics of consolidation of power gravitated. It was on the platform of national unity that the opposition was muzzled and eventually manipulated into surrender in 1963-64.

Branch recalls: “Kenyatta equated unity with obedience; he had little time for dissent. His fellow leaders in Kanu should, he thought, give him their unequivocal backing, or else face the consequences. He had no time at all for those outside the party.”

Kenya has gone full circle. It is right back where it was when the opposition began caving in, in preparation for one party. What began as informal petitions to national patriotism through lending support to the fledgling independence government paved way to open and forceful petitions for one party. Even while still in seclusion in Maralal, Mzee Kenyatta told a delegation of visitors on July 11, 1961, “I am sure for national affairs one party would be the best answer for the unity of Africans.”

The one party became a reality in 1964, with the dissolution of Kadu and other smaller parties. From now onwards, dissent was demonised. The price of thinking that you could do it differently was costly. Detention without trial became the order of the day. Even those who thought that they would agitate from a different political party were detained. Kung’u Karumba, who had been detained with Mzee Kenyatta, disappeared mysteriously in June 1974, never to be seen or heard of again. The maverick JM Kariuki was killed in 1975 by persons believed to have been very close to the heart of power.

The Nyayo era walked right into the footsteps of Mzee Kenyatta. Consolidation of power under the Nyayo regime brooked no dissent. Many, including Raila, were repeated State guests in Kamiti, Naivasha and Manyani maximum security prisons. What began as an agenda of national unity in 1963-64 degenerated very steadily into a nationwide witch hunt, a silencing of dissent and nurture of full-blown dictatorship that muzzled Parliament and took hostage of the Judiciary.

There is a remarkable sense, then, in which Kenya is embarked on the same trip, this time with the scions of Odinga and Kenyatta on the same side, where previously their parents disagreed – and one detained the other. The UhuRaila fist is reminiscent of the confession of Martin Niemoller, the German Baptist priest who agonised over the Nazi purges of 1933-1939 and the conspiracy of silence as they went on.

Conscience of society

Niemoller recalled that the purges seemed external to groups outside the targeted circles, until – when it was too late – everyone else discovered that they were involved. 

In his famous 1946 poem, Niemoller wrote:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

A functional political opposition is the conscience of society. It keeps the government on guard and blunts Executive excesses. It is not clear whether the Kenyan opposition will be able to play this role much longer. When the opposition and the government work too close together, they become like the rich mixture that is the engine oil and water in an active engine. The result is at best an engine cease and, at the worst, an engine knock. 

Today’s political activities point at an opposition that is in the intensive care unit. Its remaining life seems to be held together only by the political life support machine that is the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP). There is every indication, from Raila’s pronouncements on NASA, that the family might soon allow the ORPP to remove the life support and allow NASA to die. The formal demise of NASA might give rise to a new and more energetic opposition. This, however, remains to be seen.