Getting comfortable whenever they may be, KTs have become almost indifferent to PNUs, ODMs and Steadman polls. That’s what I thought until that became the topic of conversation in one of those swallows you know you shouldn’t be in. Yes Central Kenya was rather well represented and the views were predictably one sided.
Perhaps they all needed to take another look at the opposition. I steered it thus.
Vote for that chap? No Way! One asserted. He went on, put everything the country has achieved so far at risk in the hands of ODM (read Raila)? Not a chance.
So why is this subject (or more rightly, this man) so polarising? The incumbent has indeed delivered growth and economic stability unprecedented by a whole generation. Only natural to want that sort of continuity, predictability. A sort of chance to consolidate the gains made even further. Fair enough, I thought. He has however not led from the front and his hands off style has been a bit disengaging with wananchi still very much familiar with the previous, dominating twenty four years. But what is with that almost MOU- ish buzzword coming up again, equitable distribution.
Of course the highly attractive growth rates are generating wealth at an incredible rate but that’s all pie in the sky to the family getting by in Kibera, the one having to spend half their days looking for clean water in Garissa, the one without any health care in Kisii and the one struggling with Malaria in Siaya. Posed with the same line of questioning, the Transcenturys will surely tell everyone how well it’s going.
No it’s not enough to allot billions into some constituency fund controlled by a politician and wish them well. More government involvement via agency type outfits that work on the terms of get-the-job-done-well-or-we’ll-find-someone-who-can would probably work better.
Disparities must be decreased.
Raila does appreciate this and social justice is a big theme in his Vision document published earlier this year. So then where does it go so wrong? For starters, gaffes such that statement suggesting that drug money is being laundered through a stock exchange that has taken decades of utter sweat to build are just precarious. One can’t be surprised when such extreme labels as communist are pasted on the man when he so vehemently attacks a glowing example of capitalist success. Such labels are however an over reaction. The man is in private business.
Besides such worries and ensuing photo opportunities at the NSE to reassure a worried business community, that talk of majimboism he has to drop. Attitudes are still the same from the 90s when that talk brought untold misery. Unfortunately, moderation is not a particularly Kenyan trait. Majimbo will without doubt be interpreted as carte blance for an us versus them existence. One that can only be described in three most apt words;
Hair raising experiment.
No way to protect and grow what has been achieved so far. Populism like that coupled with an almost cultic following is plain worrying. So are plans to introduce “an independent, small Presidential Public Appointments Commission, to ensure that appointments to public corporations are based on merit and reflect the ethnic diversity of Kenya.” That statement (taken in verbatim from Raila’s Vision document) can quite easily be interpreted as a witch hunt. How about letting parliament vet those appointments?
So do yourself some favours, find the centre. Learn it, love it, live it.
