KENYA'S 2017 PRESIDENCY- A DO OR DIE FOR RAILA

What keeps Raila going strong in the political arena

Kenya’s General Election is drawing close day by day. Politicians are not parting anything to gamble and the ongoing voter registration drive has coerced the top honchos to retreat to their strongholds to stabilize their tyranny of numerical strength at the guise of convincing their people to register in numbers.

 The most contested seats in this year’s election will be that of the Governor, member of the national assembly and the member of the county assembly. Those three positions will be more bruising in Kenya’s electoral history due to the swelling numbers of the aspirants.

 The Presidency is a preserve of the esoteric few-of late it has been reduced to a battle of dynasties. It is no open secret that the Presidency is a battle of the Kenyatta dynasty against the Odinga dynasty.

The indomitable scion of Jaramogi is at it again. He is greatly determined to take the seat and has resorted to new campaign strategies.

This might be his final year in competitive politics should he fail to clinch the Presidency seat and that is why he is fighting tooth and nail to dismantle any loopholes of rigging.

 It is no secret that Raila still commands a formidable following in Kenya, notwithstanding his substantive international network. He is a political dinosaur who is revered and hated in equal measure.
His political history has enabled him to withstand the vagaries of Kenya’s political temperatures. The only other politician that has remained relevant in politics for long is none other than the Bondo born political dinosaur.

Having joined parliament when his father was still a parliamentarian way back in 1992 enabled him to benefit a lot under the tutelage of the then doyen of opposition politics, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.

Raila is not yet done as some of his purported nemesis may tend to believe. Those who were arguing about his age were in for a rude shock when the US elected a 71 year Donald Trump as the president.

Those who were arguing that it was not easy to unseat a sitting president were astounded by the manner in which most strong men in West Africa were ousted by the opposition.

Recent scenarios in Nigeria, Ghana, and Gambia were a lesson in humility- to be used as case study in this year Kenya’s elections. Democracy is now of age in Africa- it all started from the West.

 It should be recalled that multiparty democracy started elsewhere and it was not so long that its effects spread to Kenya.

 Those who stood in the way of change were ultimately swept off by its effects. Just recently Gambia’s defeated President who had lost in a fairly contested General election was forced to step down after he failed to hand over power.

 The successful quest for democracy in some African countries gives Raila and his cahoots the impetus to soldier on.

It is not easy to judge his political odyssey as this is a man who has gone through hell and back. Raila still gives the incumbent sleepless nights as the head of state is aware that he is dealing with a political titan who has made great sacrifices in the past to salvage his nation from authoritarianism and barbarian regime.
Raila is ticketed with a reformist tag and were it not for the tribalistic lot, then Raila would have been Kenya’s president a decade ago. The political journey that has been traversed by Raila has been long and rocky.

It is only the courageous one that can have the gut to dare walk in that appalling path. It is a path that has been replete with thorns, stones and many unnecessary hindrances that can make humanity unbearable.

 It is nostalgic to recall the Moi era, but Raila’s history will be incomplete without mentioning Moi because his soul was hardened by the self-proclaimed professor of politics.

As Raila makes his last assumed Presidential stab he is out to gather his entire prowess and marshal his troops in an attempt to quell any form of the tyranny of numbers that has made some leaders believe in the numerical strength of their respective tribes- in the sense that only ‘BIG’ tribes will win. This fallacy drains the last vestige of nationalism.