A campaign to lose

I am not one who sees into the future and neither do I profess to be a soothsayer, a tea leaves reader, a clairvoyant or a Mayan! I do not know how to read palms, or shells, or the dregs of your coffee and neither do I commune with witches, wizards or anything ‘shetani’. In other words I am not a political commentator or an armchair politico, whatever that means. I use my mirror on the wall into the world

My mirror on the wall tells me that politicians are a very clever though devious lot. They are very good at manipulating the status quo so that they come out as projecting a larger than life persona, a mythical god like image that they can then use to bargain at the table of power. My mirror tells me that Uhuru & Ruto and their Jubilee alliance are just such clever politicians, who have managed to imbue in their followers this god like status and larger than life persona. They have a fanatical almost suicidal following among their tribesmen and that they command great political power is not in doubt. The Kikuyu will almost certainly to the last man vote for Uhuru while Ruto promises to bring a mountain of votes to the ballot paper for Uhuru through his Kalenjin community.

Now these two fellows are very clever and therefore they are not foolish. They know that with the ICC cases hanging over their heads like the guillotine of old, Kenya will be in extremely dire circumstances should they be elected as president and deputy president respectively. They are astute businessmen in their own rights who own either directly or through numerous proxies some of the most profitable businesses across Kenya as well as tracts of land the size of small countries. They are in businesses which rely on the international perception of Kenya including tourism, banking, insurance, real estate, insurance, dairy farming, minerals etc  and it would be foolish for them to jeopardize these businesses once elected to the highest offices in the land. Their businesses must also have also lost massively after the last fracas in 2007.

My submission therefore is that they have everything to lose if they are elected and that they are now merely running a campaign not to be elected but to entrench their positions amongst their communities so as to obtain respectable representation in parliament, the senate and other leadership positions for their rank and file so that while they may not be in government, they have the numbers to insist on their pre-election coalitions being honored to some extent even with another as president. Without these two at the apex of the Jubilee alliance, many senatorial, gubernatorial, parliamentary and other political candidates will not see the doors of the offices they aspire to occupy and that is why Uhuru & Ruto have been held hostage by these political wannabes who know that without their masters, they will get nowhere. Uhuru & Ruto badly need to be on the ballot paper as they have all along insisted but this will be merely to pander to the egos of their respective communities who want to hear nothing else other than their ‘man’ being on the presidential ballot paper.

They are therefore campaigning to lose as can be seen from the many shenanigans being played around surrounding some senior government officials, the devil and the other alliances, which are all calculated to ensure that however you look at the numbers the CORD Alliance will most likely win the next general elections, with Raila Odinga, warts and all, as the next president of Kenya and at the first ballot.

If you observe keenly, Raila has been playing a very conciliatory game including promising to fight to have the ICC trails brought to Kenya for the sake of Uhuru & Ruto and imploring Mudavadi to rejoin ODM (and CORD by extension) because this is part of the lose-lose strategy of Uhuru & Ruto’s joint presidential bid so that they get a soft landing under Raila Odinga’s presidency (assuming he sticks to his promises) as well as almost guaranteeing Mudavadi whose penchant for getting himself check mated while all along he was holding a commanding edge over his opponents is legendary, a good position in his administration.  After all you would rather have a reluctant homeboy on your side and rooting for you and not on the other side barking and letting all and sundry know your dirty little secrets!! If by some miracle Raila was to succeed in bringing the ICC cases to Kenya, then Uhuru and Ruto will be suitably chastised and avoid making a nuisance of themselves in front of the benevolent Raila.

 Uhuru & Ruto are now firmly in the barrel already in the river and moving with the high current at breakneck speed towards the elections waterfall and not knowing how to get off without hurting themselves. They have built the barrel and they must now ride it to its inevitable conclusion. Unfortunately, they will never accept that they are not in in for the long haul, because they know that the country will be ungovernable under their rule as well as the fact that Kenya will lose all forward momentum and economic growth and go the way of North Korea forever shunned and vilified by the international community and struggling to meet the basic need of its people.........and their businesses will all but collapse leaving hundreds jobless and destitute and the ensuing multiplier effect leading to complete economic collapse of the economy.

As I said before I do not see into the future but rely on my mirror into the world, but if I was a pragmatic man in the shoes of the duo, Uhuru & Ruto, I would do what is best for my country but still be seen to be putting up a semblance of a fight so that my supporters remain convinced that I am in it for the long run and that I still retain my status as king maker but I would 'throw' the election.

Whether guilty or innocent after my trail with the ICC my stature as a nationalist would be on the upswing giving me a better chance at the highest office in the land once free of the shackles of the Hague.

My mirror has spoken!!