Friday, June 8, 2012

Did Wamalwa’s pouting get him the clout he needs to be next president?


Did Wamalwa’s pouting get him the clout he needs to be next president?

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By MUTUMA MATHIU mmutuma@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Thursday, June 7  2012 at  20:00
I think, and I have been known to be wrong once or twice in these many years, that Justice minister Eugene Wamalwa is, to coin a word, toast.
He has as much chance of becoming the president of the African Republic of Kenya as I have of being voted Mr Kenya at the next beauty pageant.
Mathematically, the situation is of course loaded with possibility. If for example, the judging panel is made up of my mother, my wife, my sisters, and other unobjective members of the female gender, I probably could be rigged into the title.
Or if the panel is made up of a battalion of single mothers with sons and no land for them to inherit (coupled with a burning need for an ATM to pay the bills and some device to shake the cobwebs out of the old bed), then I would stand a fighting chance.
Equally, anything is mathematically possible in politics. Mr Wamalwa has a lot going for him: he is young, he has his brother’s effortless eloquence, he has the support of most of Bungoma and its diaspora, and he is comparatively clean.
He is the kind of politician to whom perhaps the future belongs. But Kenyan politics being what it is, I think he has a snowball’s chance in hell.
First, I think the local competition is strong. Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi is the stronger candidate from Western.
He appears to be better resourced and has a wider network across the country, probably because whereas Mr Wamalwa has been a minister for a couple of weeks, Mr Mudavadi has been in the neighbourhood of power for going on 30 years.
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Do not get me wrong, long experience does not necessarily a better leader make; it just makes a more feasible politician.
Mr Wamalwa, on the other hand, is perhaps the only mainstream presidential candidate who does not have a firm grip on a party ticket: Mr Raila Odinga has automatic nomination in ODM, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta is a shoo-in for TNA, Mr William Ruto is URP’s main hope, Ms Martha Karua is the champion of Narc-K, Mr Raphael Tuju is POA’s man, Prof George Saitoti is the professor of PNU, and so on.
Mr Wamalwa is pinning his hopes on New Ford-K and there are guys there, powerful, noisy guys, who have been inviting him to go take a hike.
Now, not having a party at this time in the game is not necessarily terminal.
I mean, one could always get on Mr Kiraitu Murungi’s bus; they have a party but not a candidate.
I do not know whether Mr Wamalwa is the candidate they had in mind when they put together that party, but it is a matter of supply and demand, is it not?
But what really tickled me is Mr Wamalwa’s political sulk, the manner in which he signalled to the other guys that they cannot fool around with him.
He sauntered to his old school in Oyugis and made statements which were vaguely supportive of Mr Odinga.
The message was: If you do not treat me right, I could always go to the man you do not like.
It probably worked. From what we read in the Press, the other leaders calmed the enthusiasm for Mr Mudavadi among their allies and I think it was reported that some meetings were held, probably where tempers were calmed.
In Kenyan politics, there is very little trust, especially after President Kibaki allegedly failed to honour a secret agreement with Mr Odinga.
That original sin has grown into a veritable paranoia, where politicians suspect each other of plots against all and sundry.
The fallout between Rift Valley leaders and Mr Odinga was based on the narrative of betrayal — we gave you everything, you threw us under the bus sort of thing.
So, did Mr Wamalwa’s spot of hard ball send the right message to his suspicious potential political partners?
Did it say: I am a tough man you dare not trifle with? Or was he understood to mean: you can only trust me so long as you give me what I want?
Every calamity is an opportunity; if your house burns down, God forbid, what a lovely opportunity it is to build flats.
But you need to be a creative thinker and the kind of man who moves on quickly. What kind of man is Mr Wamalwa?

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