Kenya: This Game of Ping-Pong Should Stop, Kibaki, PNU

Kenya: This Game of Ping-Pong Should Stop, Kibaki, Raila

http://allafrica.com/stories/200803280516.html

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
OPINION28 March 2008Posted to the web 28 March 2008
Kipkoech TanuiNairobi
The nation is at a standstill again, with Dr Kofi Annan getting feelers to fly back and wave his magic wand at our leaders. There is nothing but anxiety over the VIP cat-and-mouse games.
Yet still an expectant nation waits, albeit with bated breath. For it is now a constitutional decree - power must be shared proportionately between President Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) and Mr Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

But when the country's top two leaders meet behind closed doors to discuss 50-50 power-sharing deal, with due respect to "portfolio balance", what follows is just a charade. They smile at the camera, shake hands, and walk to their motorcades. But underneath, the hearts are raging.
That is why slowly the nation has realised we are in for the long haul. The game of ping-pong Kibaki and Raila are playing, as the displaced soak in the rains in showgrounds and police stations, must stop.
Despite the President's repeated assurances to the nation he is committed to the Annan deal, and Raila's talk of willingness to work with Kibaki for Kenya's sake, the red flag is already up in the air. Threats of mass action are back. The contention is that the Cabinet portfolios PNU has set aside for ODM read like departments in some ministries. Consider these three: Micro-enterprises, Industrialisation, National Cohesion and Harmony. The act of mischief and bad faith is discernible.
However because negotiations are still ongoing, despite the jolts, it is safe to assume that time and pressure from the people will soften the hardest of hearts.
One can just hope Raila and Kibaki will make sense of James Freeman Clarke's caution: "A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation."
As a nation searching its soul, it is important, however much we disagree on our political standpoints, to appreciate that whatever comes out of the ongoing negotiations, history will only judge two people - Kibaki and Raila, harshly and generously.
It does not matter if Kibaki drags the Head of Civil Service Mr Francis Muthaura, a highly paid retiree still in public service, and his other indefatigable sidekicks such as Cabinet ministers Martha Karua, Prof George Saitoti and Amos Kimunya, to the negotiating table. It also matters less if Raila unleashes the Pentagon squad. Whichever way you look at it, Kibaki and Raila are the ones holding the baby Kenya. If it slips through their hands, it might not be so much about who nudged the other's hand, but that they both equally had the chance to save it.
Today the ugliest veneer in all this build up is the fact that as country, we seem to be warming up to external intervention. Our well of diplomacy, patience and sacrifice seems to be drying up. We would rather look up to Annan and probably the US.
This is my lamentation; this is as fallacious as Kibaki trusting in the fact that 32 new police stations have been built in areas struck by violence to guarantee the security of the displaced.
The trauma of the displaced notwithstanding, and with due respect to their pain and sense of loss, it is imprudent to rely on brute force whilst shutting the door at dialogue and peace-making.
The other worry for Kenya is that if the two leaders reluctantly give away or agree to take up certain positions, we shall have a turbulent Cabinet to the end. Look at how the two groups agreed, then out of political expedience, disagreed over the Safaricom initial public offer. If the two leaders are going to run Kenya, it should not take Annan to push them into making concessions.
Raila and Kibaki must remember that, in the words of Adlai E Stevenson Jr: "Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime." The Japanese have a rich proverb: "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare."
Finally, given his powerful position at the negotiating table, for after all he is and will remain President, the burden on Kibaki's shoulders is heavier. He just almost reinvented himself, agreeing to drop the phrase "your duly elected President", to shake Raila's hand, and finally sign the National Accord. In Parliament, he spoke so well, so powerfully, then dashed to State House to sign it into law.
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But just when all looked well, therein comes the surprise card. Kenya should not sink to the abysmal levels that made Jack Handy in Deep Thoughts hand us the handy exclamation: "I wish a robot would get elected president. That way, when he came to town, we could all take a shot at him and not feel too bad."
The ball is in Kibaki's and Raila's court.