Can Kibaki outsmart the PNU rebels?

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Can Kibaki outsmart the PNU rebels?


Story by MUTAHI NGUNYI Last word on Sunday Publication Date: 7/20/2008
President Kibaki is not in a good place. Early in the year, ODM broke into his “residence” and forced him to share power 50:50. Now we have two equal “governments” in one.
And, although he is the boss, I doubt that he is in control. But that does not bother me. What bothers me is the rejection he is facing from PNU on party unity. His point? If PNU does not hang together, it will most assuredly be hanged separately -- by ODM.
On this account, the President is dead right and you cannot argue with his logic. However, the PNU renegades have a point as well. To them, the President is no longer relevant. No magic
He has no future, no magic and no power. In sum, he is taking them nowhere. Indirectly, therefore, they are telling him this: “If you claim to be a leader and you have no followers, you are just taking a walk!”
But why the drama? I have a hypothesis that touches on Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka and Mr Uhuru Kenyatta. The two are President Kibaki’s blue-eyed boys.
In fact, they are perceived as his preferred team for 2012. The PNU rebellion is, therefore, a rejection of this selective affection; a revolt against President Kibaki’s preferred “successors.”
To the PNU rebels, the unity call is just a ploy aimed at protecting Mr Kenyatta. But how so? This man is targeted by a group of opposition MPs over alleged illegal nomination of councillors.
If found ‘‘guilty,’’ an attempt to impeach him will be mounted. And if a vote of no confidence is passed against him in Parliament, he will stand sacked.
No confidence
Unlike Mr Amos Kimunya, Mr Kenyatta cannot be fired by the President or be forced to resign. As Deputy Prime Minister, he can only be fired by Parliament through a no-confidence vote.
In my view, the President wants to avoid such an eventuality. More so one in which ODM and the PNU rebels gang up against Mr Kenyatta in Parliament.
But, on their part, the PNU rebels see this as an opportunity to fix Mr Kenyatta. If he is impeached in Parliament, their succession battle within PNU will be made easier. And this is a probable explanation why the President and the renegades are fighting it out.
But, apart from fixing Mr Kenyatta and fighting the “irrelevant” President, do the PNU rebels have a game plan? Let us consider the question using M/s Martha Karua, the chief rebel.
So far, she has done two things right and one thing wrong. First, she has decided to aggress on President Kibaki and wrestle the GEMA leadership from him. This, and her role in the December crisis, has earned her the title ‘‘jamba,’’ meaning brave warrior.
Given the insecurities suffered by her community after the election crisis, her status as a ‘‘jamba’’ might come in handy in the succession battle.
The second thing she has done right is to reach out to Mr Raila Odinga and other leaders outside the Mt Kenya region. This kind of bridge-making is what will bring healing to our country. But she continues to do one thing wrong!
The lady does not understand the art of political seduction. And this is probably because she learnt her politics from President Kibaki. Politically, the President is like a man who provides his woman with everything earthly and intellectual, but no romance.
Mr Odinga, to the contrary, is the type to politically romance a target and convince them that eating ugali with salt is posh. These abilities might sound vulgar, but in politics, you need to appeal to the heart, not the head. And in the case of M/s Karua, she cannot appeal to us with a sneer and aggression
Quarrelsome
She sounds quarrelsome when she does so. To fight Mr Kenyatta and his “twin” brother Mr Musyoka, she needs a more seductive appeal. More so because the two are smooth.
But if the PNU rebellion is on, and the President cannot stop it, what are his options? In my view, he has two. One, he can choose to abandon party politics and concentrate on his legacy. In this case, he would have to forego the grooming of a preferred “successor.”
And, while at it, the President should remember that his legacy will have nothing to do with the economy. If we ever erect a monument in his honour, it will not read “Here stands Mr Mwai Kibaki, the man who revived the Kenya economy!”
In my view, his legacy will be in the area of constitutional review. More fundamentally, ensuring that the institutional weaknesses that drove us into a state of war are fixed.
His second option is to soldier on with his unity project. And if he does this, he is bound to face open rebellion. More so if he is perceived to support the Kenyatta-Kalonzo axis.
But if he is hell-bound on grooming a successor team, he will have to quell the rebellion using high-handed methods. One thing we can expect is the demotion of M/s Karua from the Justice Ministry to a less significant position – maybe sports! But can President Kibaki do this? Is he capable of such drama? I submit that we do not know the man.
And today being a Sunday, I suggest that we say a prayer for Senator Barack Obama. Not for him to win, but for God to preserve his life. I say so because Americans are known to assassinate their best – especially the prominent blacks.
As his ancestral land, we owe the guy a preservation prayer. Or what do you think?
Mutahi Ngunyi is a political scientist with The Consulting House, a policy innovation think-tank working in the Great Lakes Region and West Africa.