Let's campaign around issues not tribes

In virtually every election Kenya has held since the reintroduction of multi-party system, voters have been mobilised around tribes.

In the 1992, 1997 and 2007 elections, thousands of people living or doing business away from their ethnic origins were forced to flee for dear life. Some were killed in an orgy of violence. Their mistake was to belong to another tribe or political outfit.

We cannot continue this trend any longer. It is retrogressive and does not serve the nation's long-term goals.

How can a fractured nation pulling in different directions focus on a singular objective? How can a divided nation fend off external political and economic aggression? We have lost too much time and too many opportunities. But it is not too late.

When President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto started organising around a single vehicle, the Jubilee Alliance Party, I had mixed feelings about it. One, I knew that this was an idea whose time had time. This country needs two main national political parties.

Although Kenya is constitutionally a multi-party state, two main parties could force politicians to start agitating around ideologies rather than preoccupy themselves with ethnic competition. Two, I was apprehensive that the idea would come a cropper considering our history with political party organisation. Attempts by President Kibaki in 2003 to dissolve constituent parties under the Narc Alliance flopped after Raila Odinga's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) gave it a cold shoulder.

Kenyans seem tired of the tribal nature of our politics, and will be happy to embrace a new style of leadership revolving around ideologies, manifestos and track records.

The two main coalitions have the opportunity to change the course of history simply by tapping into this desire and showing the nation a new direction.