Post by cut paste on Nov 20, 2005 5:16:45 GMT 3
The Orange alliance is fraught with landmines
By Makau Mutua
Kenyans should know that neither the Banana camp nor the Orange team has the vision and the political discipline to institute sweeping legal, political, and economic reforms.
Whatever happens in the referendum tomorrow, Kenyans are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
The narrow political class that has ruled the country since 1964 lacks entrepreneurship and the measure of altruism necessary for national reconstruction.
Tom Mboya, no matter his ideological inclinations, may have been the last true visionary in the political class.
Since Mboya’s assassination, and the neutering of Oginga Odinga by the Kanu State, politicians with small, petty, or non-existent ideas have dotted Kenya’s political landscape.
That is why rather than join the group of middle-income countries — or do even better — Kenya has retrogressed.
In virtually every United Nations statistical index, Kenya is usually ranked near the most desolate countries. In a vicious cycle, the country’s woes are compounded by the flight of human capital. Kenya simply cannot develop unless the political class stops making the country inhospitable to many of its most talented citizens.
The myopic struggle over constitutional review is a vivid demonstration of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the political class.
Since it was overwhelmingly elected on a platform of major reforms in December 2002, Narc has shockingly squandered three years fighting over whether the constitution ought to provide for an executive prime minister.
It is even more bizarre that a prohibitively expensive and potentially catastrophic referendum is being organised to settle this silly, insignificant question.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that this issue is not the crux of the crisis of the constitutional review process.
Let us unmask the Orange camp since it is the proponent of the parliamentary system of government in which the prime minister would be the chief executive in the State.
The Orange campaign would not exist but for Minister Raila Odinga, the LDP leader and scion of Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s most famous oppositionist. Raila is the biggest orange of them all.
For three decades Odinga has sought, whether by hook or crook, to ascend to the pinnacle of political power.
Some media reports have linked him to the 1982 coup attempt. No one was really shocked when he threatened a coup should the Orange team lose the referendum.
Let us peel the orange. Odinga bought the National Development when he lost Ford-Kenya to Kijana Wamalwa. Then he fused the NDP with Kanu after the 1997 elections.
He was later appointed minister and named Kanu Secretary General by President Moi.
In 2002, Odinga ditched Kanu when he realised that Moi did not intend to anoint him his successor. He then returned to the opposition as a prodigal son.
A smart political tactician, Odinga captured George Saitoti, Kalonzo Musyoka, Joseph Kamotho, Moody Awori, and William Ole Ntimama — all senior party stalwarts spurned by Moi — from Kanu. With them, he formed the LDP to bargain with Kibaki’s NAK.
Odinga’s LDP then entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with NAK.
Kibaki promised to appoint Odinga prime minister and share cabinet posts equally with LDP.
But Kibaki assumed the imperial powers of the current Constitution and reneged on the MOU.
A furious Odinga vowed revenge.
He mobilised the National Constitutional Conference to pass the Bomas Draft Constitution in which the Prime Minister would be the Chief Executive with a directly elected, but largely ceremonial, president.
The ruling in the Njoya case allowed NAK to hobble the Bomas Draft and take back the review process.
NAK then engineered the Proposed New Constitution that provides for a strong presidential system with a prime minister who is subordinate to the President and the Deputy President.
Odinga immediately launched a campaign against the Proposed New Constitution.
He has reassembled New Kanu. Former and sitting Kanu bigwigs and Odinga’s defunct NDP are now back together in the Orange team.
Except for Moody Awori, the Vice President, and Ministers George Saitoti and Raphael Tuju, Odinga has held on to all the other significant LDP founders.
He has snatched Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, once a respected nationalist of Luo descent, from NAK.
Surprisingly, he has added James Orengo and Pheroze Nowrojee to his war chest.
Odinga’s power in Luo Nyanza was so ubiquitous in 2002 that no one was elected in the region without his blessing.
The defeat of Orengo, Shem Ochuodho, and Joe Donde demonstrated his power over the Luo.
Although Tuju is the first serious rival for Luo supremacy that Odinga has faced since Orengo, the region is expected to vote solidly for the Orange team.
Since the assassinations of Mboya and Robert Ouko and the detention and marginalisation of both Oginga and Raila Odinga, the Luo have developed a sharp outsider victim psychology. To them, Odinga is the messiah who will deliver them from exclusion and discrimination by the Kenyan State.
It is Odinga’s political acumen that has enabled him to convince Kalonzo Musyoka, the former Kanu hawk who is more popular nationally, that their fates are intertwined.
Even though Musyoka fancies himself presidential material, he has played second fiddle to Odinga in an alliance of convenience.
Although there is no trust or love lost between them, they both have a common foe in Kibaki and NAK.
Their marriage gives the ‘No’ camp a large, perhaps the largest, chunk of the populous Kamba vote.
Conversely, Musyoka hopes to capitalise on the Luo vote when he runs for the presidency in 2007.
No one believes that a President Musyoka would be ceremonial to Odinga, an executive prime minister.
Odinga knows this and may instead support the more malleable Musalia Mudavadi, the former Vice President, for the presidency come 2007.
This strategy may create a Luo-Luhya alliance that could be more lucrative for Odinga.
But such a road could be perilous for Odinga given the presence of Western Province by Musikari Kombo, the leader of Ford-Kenya and Mukhisa Kituyi, his younger counterpart, not to mention Awori, the Vice President.
The ‘No’ campaign has also done quite well in the Coast Province with Minister Najib Balala and Taib Ali Taib, the Mombasa mayor.
And it has made significant gains in North Eastern Province. The Odinga group has reached out more effectively to severely underdeveloped and historically marginalised regions and communities.
But by far Odinga’s biggest success has been in having former President Moi, Kanu and its leaders — Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto — to support the ‘No’ campaign.
Although Odinga made certain that Kenyatta and Kanu lost the 2002 elections, they have rendezvoused again because they have a common opponent in President Kibaki and NAK.
Both Odinga and Kenyatta want to succeed Kibaki to the presidency in 2007.
Moi would love to see Kenyatta ascend to the throne. For Odinga, Moi’s support ensures him a victory for the ‘No’ team in the Rift Valley.
Although the Orange team is built around Odinga, virtually all its leaders and backers have always been anti-reform. The Orange team is a forum of convenience and is likely to disintegrate after the referendum.
The ambitions of its leading lights will collide sooner than later. That is why it would be a mistake for Kenyans to view the Orange camp as a government-in-waiting.
Nor should Kenyans be fooled by the Orange camp’s promise to implement the Bomas Draft.
The presidential aspirants in the ‘No’ camp would rather rule under the current constitution.
The writer is a professor of law at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Chair of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.
By Makau Mutua
Kenyans should know that neither the Banana camp nor the Orange team has the vision and the political discipline to institute sweeping legal, political, and economic reforms.
Whatever happens in the referendum tomorrow, Kenyans are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
The narrow political class that has ruled the country since 1964 lacks entrepreneurship and the measure of altruism necessary for national reconstruction.
Tom Mboya, no matter his ideological inclinations, may have been the last true visionary in the political class.
Since Mboya’s assassination, and the neutering of Oginga Odinga by the Kanu State, politicians with small, petty, or non-existent ideas have dotted Kenya’s political landscape.
That is why rather than join the group of middle-income countries — or do even better — Kenya has retrogressed.
In virtually every United Nations statistical index, Kenya is usually ranked near the most desolate countries. In a vicious cycle, the country’s woes are compounded by the flight of human capital. Kenya simply cannot develop unless the political class stops making the country inhospitable to many of its most talented citizens.
The myopic struggle over constitutional review is a vivid demonstration of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the political class.
Since it was overwhelmingly elected on a platform of major reforms in December 2002, Narc has shockingly squandered three years fighting over whether the constitution ought to provide for an executive prime minister.
It is even more bizarre that a prohibitively expensive and potentially catastrophic referendum is being organised to settle this silly, insignificant question.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that this issue is not the crux of the crisis of the constitutional review process.
Let us unmask the Orange camp since it is the proponent of the parliamentary system of government in which the prime minister would be the chief executive in the State.
The Orange campaign would not exist but for Minister Raila Odinga, the LDP leader and scion of Oginga Odinga, Kenya’s most famous oppositionist. Raila is the biggest orange of them all.
For three decades Odinga has sought, whether by hook or crook, to ascend to the pinnacle of political power.
Some media reports have linked him to the 1982 coup attempt. No one was really shocked when he threatened a coup should the Orange team lose the referendum.
Let us peel the orange. Odinga bought the National Development when he lost Ford-Kenya to Kijana Wamalwa. Then he fused the NDP with Kanu after the 1997 elections.
He was later appointed minister and named Kanu Secretary General by President Moi.
In 2002, Odinga ditched Kanu when he realised that Moi did not intend to anoint him his successor. He then returned to the opposition as a prodigal son.
A smart political tactician, Odinga captured George Saitoti, Kalonzo Musyoka, Joseph Kamotho, Moody Awori, and William Ole Ntimama — all senior party stalwarts spurned by Moi — from Kanu. With them, he formed the LDP to bargain with Kibaki’s NAK.
Odinga’s LDP then entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with NAK.
Kibaki promised to appoint Odinga prime minister and share cabinet posts equally with LDP.
But Kibaki assumed the imperial powers of the current Constitution and reneged on the MOU.
A furious Odinga vowed revenge.
He mobilised the National Constitutional Conference to pass the Bomas Draft Constitution in which the Prime Minister would be the Chief Executive with a directly elected, but largely ceremonial, president.
The ruling in the Njoya case allowed NAK to hobble the Bomas Draft and take back the review process.
NAK then engineered the Proposed New Constitution that provides for a strong presidential system with a prime minister who is subordinate to the President and the Deputy President.
Odinga immediately launched a campaign against the Proposed New Constitution.
He has reassembled New Kanu. Former and sitting Kanu bigwigs and Odinga’s defunct NDP are now back together in the Orange team.
Except for Moody Awori, the Vice President, and Ministers George Saitoti and Raphael Tuju, Odinga has held on to all the other significant LDP founders.
He has snatched Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, once a respected nationalist of Luo descent, from NAK.
Surprisingly, he has added James Orengo and Pheroze Nowrojee to his war chest.
Odinga’s power in Luo Nyanza was so ubiquitous in 2002 that no one was elected in the region without his blessing.
The defeat of Orengo, Shem Ochuodho, and Joe Donde demonstrated his power over the Luo.
Although Tuju is the first serious rival for Luo supremacy that Odinga has faced since Orengo, the region is expected to vote solidly for the Orange team.
Since the assassinations of Mboya and Robert Ouko and the detention and marginalisation of both Oginga and Raila Odinga, the Luo have developed a sharp outsider victim psychology. To them, Odinga is the messiah who will deliver them from exclusion and discrimination by the Kenyan State.
It is Odinga’s political acumen that has enabled him to convince Kalonzo Musyoka, the former Kanu hawk who is more popular nationally, that their fates are intertwined.
Even though Musyoka fancies himself presidential material, he has played second fiddle to Odinga in an alliance of convenience.
Although there is no trust or love lost between them, they both have a common foe in Kibaki and NAK.
Their marriage gives the ‘No’ camp a large, perhaps the largest, chunk of the populous Kamba vote.
Conversely, Musyoka hopes to capitalise on the Luo vote when he runs for the presidency in 2007.
No one believes that a President Musyoka would be ceremonial to Odinga, an executive prime minister.
Odinga knows this and may instead support the more malleable Musalia Mudavadi, the former Vice President, for the presidency come 2007.
This strategy may create a Luo-Luhya alliance that could be more lucrative for Odinga.
But such a road could be perilous for Odinga given the presence of Western Province by Musikari Kombo, the leader of Ford-Kenya and Mukhisa Kituyi, his younger counterpart, not to mention Awori, the Vice President.
The ‘No’ campaign has also done quite well in the Coast Province with Minister Najib Balala and Taib Ali Taib, the Mombasa mayor.
And it has made significant gains in North Eastern Province. The Odinga group has reached out more effectively to severely underdeveloped and historically marginalised regions and communities.
But by far Odinga’s biggest success has been in having former President Moi, Kanu and its leaders — Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto — to support the ‘No’ campaign.
Although Odinga made certain that Kenyatta and Kanu lost the 2002 elections, they have rendezvoused again because they have a common opponent in President Kibaki and NAK.
Both Odinga and Kenyatta want to succeed Kibaki to the presidency in 2007.
Moi would love to see Kenyatta ascend to the throne. For Odinga, Moi’s support ensures him a victory for the ‘No’ team in the Rift Valley.
Although the Orange team is built around Odinga, virtually all its leaders and backers have always been anti-reform. The Orange team is a forum of convenience and is likely to disintegrate after the referendum.
The ambitions of its leading lights will collide sooner than later. That is why it would be a mistake for Kenyans to view the Orange camp as a government-in-waiting.
Nor should Kenyans be fooled by the Orange camp’s promise to implement the Bomas Draft.
The presidential aspirants in the ‘No’ camp would rather rule under the current constitution.
The writer is a professor of law at the State University of New York at Buffalo and Chair of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.