Monday, March 29, 2004
Charles Onyango Obbo:
When Fence-Sitting is the only Sensible Way
In what might be a world first, the Vice President Moody and Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Karaitu Murungi led a walkout of government ministers and delegates who were sympathetic. It was a tactical blunder, because the government wasn't represented at the constitutional review as an entity. The president and his ministers are delegates because they are MPs.
The walkout served to further underline the factional split in the 16-party ruling coalition, because feisty Roads and Works Minister Raila Odinga, the unofficial leader of the Liberal Democratic Party and the government's in-house tree shaker, stayed behind with two other ministers affiliated to LDP, and claimed the moral high ground as the untiring voice of the people.
One of the simmering issues behind the frustration that led to the "government walkout" is an emotional issue that even the boldest of Kenyan politicians can only refer to as "sectarian interests." It is a problem that plagues many African countries.
President Mwai Kibaki's victory in the December 2002 election was historical because he was the candidate of two powerful Kenyan groups that have had a long history of rivalry - the Kikuyu and Luo political classes. Kibaki is a mild-mannered man, an eternal fence-sitter. But because he is from the Kikuyu community, he has inherited a historical problem.
Kenya's first post-independence president Jomo Kenyatta was a Kikuyu too, from the central region, which was relatively developed by the white settler economy. Central was therefore seen to have "eaten twice" by also getting the country's first president. Kenyatta's patronage system didn't help matters.
Former president Daniel arap Moi's long rule survived partly on exploiting the prejudices against the Kikuyu. In the review process, there were constant oblique comments that ministers from the Kibaki-led Democratic Party faction - who led the acrimonious attack on the proposals that were eventually adopted to strip the (directly elected) president of various powers and give them to a prime minister (who isn't nationally elected but is the leader of the majority party in parliament) - were only interested in returning to Kikuyu "hegemony" - hence the "sectarian interests".
It is a game that no Kikuyu politician, no matter the party he represents, can ever win. If they take positions that the other communities agree with, they are considered democrats and nationalists. When their position is unpopular, they are portrayed as tribalists. It's something that Ugandans understand well. The Baganda in the south are in the same position as the Kikuyu. They were seen as privileged in the colonial period, and though Buganda's King Freddie Mutesa was largely a titular president, his clash with the central government in 1966 that led to the abolition of kingdoms entrenched popular biases against Baganda politicians. It has ensured that the rest of Uganda has easily voted down all the pet loves of Buganda. Buganda politicians who have found national popularity and acceptance have all had to denounce Buganda's hankering for a fully-fledged monarchy, and its clamour for federalism. Just as, for a Muganda to be a goo
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Ugandan he has to be a bad Muganda, Kenya too seems to have become a country where for a Kikuyu to become a good Kenyan he must be a bad Kikuyu. It's the peculiar curse of colonial history. Kibaki, because of his fence-sitting ways, has managed to avoid being painted into a corner as a tribal chieftain. The price he's had to pay is to be viewed as an ineffective national president. The irony is, Kenya's proposed constitution, with its complex balance between the president and prime minister, ensures that successful future leaders will be those who do a Kibaki.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is managing editor in charge of media convergence at the Nation Media Group. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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