http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=127686

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=127686


Fix this confusion and, while at it, spare our children

Story by GITAU WARIGI Sunday View Publication Date: 7/20/2008
To get an idea of the confusion we live in, ask a child in junior school what they are taught in their weekly civics drills. It is the ruling party. I am told the curriculum still tells them it is Narc.
Let’s not quite blame the children or their teachers for that – it is difficult enough as it is for anybody to figure out the confusing party landscape in this country.
PNU, the Big Brother in government, is supposed to be a coalition of parties. Which I assume means it is not in itself a party, but an arrangement of convenience for small parties that need to cohabit.
BELATEDLY, WE HEAR THE PNU wants to transform itself into the real thing. Something so elementary that should have long ago been factored in is now running against the many vested interests that inevitably had taken root in this loose cohabitation. To mesh the whole thing together now is causing quite some sweat as events are beginning to show.
Personally, I am not a fan of the loose, come-we-stay party culture that defined Narc and now PNU. I consider its glorification in post-Kanu Kenya to be quite misguided.
Coalitions wherever they are practised do not signify a stable party, leave alone a stable government. By their very nature they encourage endless sniping and back-biting.
A stable multi-party environment is best anchored under a few big parties who have no inhibitions when it comes to making their national presence felt. Give a plus there to ODM. What we see in PNU are middling parties with regional tags whose professions of capturing national power are but mere pretence.
Narc-Kenya seeks to be an exception, and so wants to break away. But what chances does it have? I have my doubts. The perception on the ground is that its interests are factional. Nor is the fact that it is moving out of the PNU basket likely to convince others that it is cut from a different cloth.
Don’t forget that others like the Democratic Party have tried the trick before, and failed. So what is it that makes Narc-Kenya imagine it could fare differently?
Because it has Ms Martha Karua and Mr Danson Mungatana?
Like the next man, I admire the Gichugu Iron Lady for her courage and grit. What I can’t figure out is why somebody of her intelligence and experience clearly has ignored the twin lessons of the 2005 referendum and last year’s polarised election. One must assume that being overlooked for the deputy premiership by the man she went to the wire for has been hugely dispiriting.
It would nonetheless be a grand pity if another sterling career got derailed like Mr Paul Muite’s because of a perception of being a lone ranger.
Most Kenyan parties like to explain away their incoherence by claiming they are practising “internal democracy”. This is diversionary. What absolutely matters is if a party stands a chance to win power, not the divisive cacophony it generates.
Without power you are impotent. And if all you are concerned with is this “internal democracy”, you become just a shouting-shop. And the circus goes on. We now hear of another PNU splinter party calling itself the Grand National Union (GNU).
It has proudly installed as its chairman a former MP from central Kenya who lost spectacularly in his bid for re-election last year. One gets an idea of its likely impact when you factor in the fact that its top people are “heavyweights” like Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri.
The GNU group are people fleeing from Narc-Kenya. It is said they are running away because they have reservations about working with Ms Karua.
They believe that in forming their new animal, they will be giving themselves a bargaining peg in whatever new formation emerges out of PNU. If so, their strategy is confused.
I DOUBT WHETHER IN THEIR OWN catchment areas people have any stomach left for yet another forgettable party. I don’t foresee any major seismic waves being caused by this party any more than I can see, say, Chama Cha Mazingira doing the same.
Mt Kenya leaders have this unfortunate pre-occupation of gazing at their own navels the whole day and forgetting that there is a bigger world out there. More tragically, their behaviour only feeds into the stereotypes their opponents have fashioned for them in the multi-party era. Look, who is talking loudest about 2012?
Ms Karua has now come forward to say she wants to be president. The other names being mentioned in the same breath are Uhuru Kenyatta, Kiraitu Murungi and their Rift Valley cousin George Saitoti. In which other region do you find such a glut of would-be candidates being paraded?