Recently President Kibaki had yet another meeting with former President Moi that sent jitters down the spines of those in the know. (As I was posting this, news came through that Moi has been appointed special envoy to the Sudan. Still I don’t believe that this is the only thing No2 and No3 were discussing).
Contrary to common belief, the two old men have not fallen out with each other and insiders say that the meeting was designed to put the final touches to their campaign strategy.
Apparently as we head towards the polls, meetings involving the two will dwindle and disappear altogether. The idea is that the two men are not supposed to present a united front image to the voting public.
I told you here months ago that Kanu would go it alone in this general elections and that they will probably even field a presidential candidate. I stand by my story. But what Kenyans are not aware of is the intricately laid out plan by the two men to ensure that the status quo is maintained and that ill-gotten wealth acquired during the Moi Presidency and also during Kibaki's tenure is fully protected.
I find it interesting that eve after former President Moi's influence has become rather clear there are many Kumekucha readers still in denial and who keep on saying here that Moi is of no consequence in the coming general elections.
I have concluded that the reason for this shortsightedness is the fact that many Kenyans still analyze politics emotionally and use their hearts rather than their brains. Let me explain. I have my preferred presidential candidate who as you all now is John Githongo. Now imagine a situation where I analyze the presidency and allow my personal preferences to cloud my judgment. To begin with I will be of no use to my preferred candidate because I will hardly be able to see the strengths of his opponents, which means that thinking up a strategy will be impossible.
Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Kenyans, it is a very useful to be able to leave emotions out of your political analysis. It is the only way you can be truly useful to your preferred candidate. However if you wish to remain a mere heckler, that is still okay and definitely within your democratic rights.
Unless Kenyans do something about it, the 2nd and 3rd President's of Kenya will have a major say on what unfolds in December this year and who will yield political power come January 2008.
Here's their game plan.
President Kibaki will run on his own with whatever party he chooses (Narc Kenya or otherwise.) Kanu under the micro-management of No 2 or Baba Gidi, as we call him in this blog (Thank you Taabu) will also run on its' own. I still insist that Kanu are the party to beat this time round. Let me list just four reasons here.
i) They are the single party that has the highest number of seats in parliament. The Narc of 2002 is a "coalition" that was formed before the elections and that is why it promptly disintegrated soon after the election victory. In African politics the incumbent always starts with a huge advantage and the party already with the majority of seats also starts with a similar advantage.
ii) Kanu is the only political party in the country that has a grassroots network the reaches out to every single constituency and district in the republic. This is a huge, huge advantage. For starters it means that just like last time, this will be the only party capable of fielding a candidate in every constituency in the nation.
iii) To the common ordinary Kenyan on the ground, life was much better under the Kanu government and Moi. Asking the folks in the villages to return Kanu to power will be a very persuasive message that many voters will see good reason to heed. I have said that it is not prudent to analyze politics with emotions, but that is exactly what the voters on the ground will be doing. I can assure you that one very emotional issue is the difficulties in getting money that ordinary Kenyans talk about on the ground. Many are saying that hii serekali na uchumi ni ya matajari (this government and economy is only for the rich).
iv) Kanu is clearly being positioned to receive strong defectors from both ODM Kenya and Narc-Kenya. Already it is clear that there are areas where ODM will not be able to penetrate where Kanu will be comfortable and will even have a decent chance of winning in certain constituencies. Most notably Central Province. There are also areas where Narc cannot dare venture where Kanu will be welcome and can easily win if the ODM get their nomination exercise wrong, which is very easy to do. You know the one place at the top of the list here—Luo Nyanza, naturally. The sum of all this is that Kanu will end up with a huge number of parliamentary seats.
The game plan is that Kibaki's political party and Kanu working separately will between them win the majority of seats in parliament. So as soon as President Kibaki supposedly wins the elections, he will simply form another GNU (Government of national unity with Kanu). Actually of all goes according to plan, he will not need any other political partner, which will give him a much more peaceful second term. This also means that in this scenario, chances are pretty high that Kenya's next vice president will be from Kanu.
Now let me get some emotions into this. Kumekucha ha a strategy to counter this. A very powerful one indeed. Sorry folks we have already entered the season of high politics and I cannot reveal my Githongo-winning strategy against this schemes. But that doesn't pevent us from discussing a few scenarios in the comments section below. A word of caution. There is mounting evidence that our brothers at the NSIS are getting desperate and one of their methods (used frequently here) is to rubbish my entire analysis and divert attention from certain truths and instead turn our discussion here into a personal thing of who is right and who is not. Beware of those kind of comments.
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