Your President 2013

The task of choosing the most favourable candidate to be the fourth president of Kenya has never been harder. The idea behind this sequence is to provide an easy look at the candidates in order to simplify the individual decision making.

Kenyans have never been more eager to make the right presidential replacement as they do now so every effort must be made to make it the right.

I have been asked severally to name the one person that I believe would win the elections if it was now and who will win the elections when the time comes. These questions might seem to be one and the same but they are very different in respect to the time between.

One year ago Prime Minister Raila Odinga would have won the presidency with a good margin between him and his closest rival. Today he is shoulder to shoulder with his closest challenger Uhuru Kenyatta in a second run off.

I don’t believe that the polls conducted in Kenya show the peoples’ exact attitudes but I concur that a second run off could give Mr Kenyatta, the Deputy PM a victory given the boost he is set to receive from the rest of the G7 contenders after the elimination round. But this is not that straight forward and a number of events are dictating the game’s field.

Raila’s popularity is dangerously declining with a head dive and there is no telling if or when he can level out. Actually only a miracle can help.

Raila’s ODM party was made of a united force of like minded individuals and it's might was produced by their grass root follow up. The Pentagon, as that ODM super power organ was called, is synonymous with the party itself. One is not, without the other. ODM might just as well be branded Odinga’s Democratic Movement after it has shade off the rest of the pentagon massive.

Most ODM members, supporters or sympathisers still want to believe that ODM is still the party it was say three years ago and Raila is still the Agwambo he was at that time. The fact is, though Raila and ODM might still be the candidate and party to beat, it won’t be difficult to receive a thorough thrashing now and in the near future.

The hooligans who have turned that party’s slogan to “if you can’t beat them stone them or uproot the rail" should be made to prepare to accept a historic defeat, factual or imaginary for the sake of a peaceful Kenya. 

Going by the so termed independent polls carried out every now and then, the only obstacle that stops Uhuru Kenyatta from being the leading candidate is the ICC chain he is dragging behind him. That same said case at The Hague has somehow also thrown favour in his way; this out of sympathy or locally, by heroic admiration.

The Two Horses.

What makes me keep referring to these two?

I am totally convinced that the next president of the republic of Kenya shall be either one of them or shall come from this two together or from any one of them.

Raila’s fall from favour after the disintegration of the mighty ODM is a sure way to predict his third (ama ni fourth?) presidential defeat in the box. Ironically this will come after the last one in which he claim(s)ed was stolen from him.

Uhuru’s disfavours are two, he is a kikuyu in a climate that yearns for a non kikuyu president and his name is in a place called Hague where they teach Africans a lesson; he has a case to answer.

Like it or not, every time a member of ODM, pentagon or not, leaves the movement, they leave with a bunch of followers that promise never to return. The funny thing about politics is that even if the deserters decided to come back home, they never come with the same mob that left with them. It would only be with a smaller, confused and disheartening lot.

So baring in mind that those who have left ODM (defected or fired) swore not just to never again work with the RAO but also promised to render him a ruthless beating at the ballot, the only tactic left is what Raila is known best for, the cry wolf syndrome. Enter Jakoyo and Imanyara.

Not forgetting that the ICC is his causal factor in his presidential quest and that being a kikuyu is the wrong thing to be at the right time, a million signatures or the AU is the only way out for Jomo’s son. Enter GEMA.

But there you have the two main alternatives, if you like, the two horses that count. Question is, less than a year from now, come doomsday, what will be left of them?

That makes the only sensible conclusion, if they won’t be the president, they will make the president. They are the powermakers.

If by an unforeseeable wit they come together, shelf their selfishness for the sake of the republic, they will give you your kind of a president 2013.

Here I put these two together in such an unpredictable union because of the alarming talk about possible chaos before, during and after the coming elections. It is very obvious that the direction the day’s politics is taking us will be bloody, unless very serious sacrifices are offered.

Kenya is not forming another coalition government soon, well, unless the new constitution is just a bunch of papers. Existentially, a new Kenya is in the making, a powerful, wealthy (oil comes with bling) African state and for the whos, a place in its history should be a drive.

To avoid one of the bloodiest moments in our history, Raila and Uhuru could resolve their differences and make up. Unless, they are ready to take responsibility after the breaking up of Kenya.

Before I catch a breath, I find it unfair that the tribal red card is mostly if not ONLY given to kikuyus. It is unjust that though ministers on Kibaki’s side of the coalition are willing or are forced to step aside to allow fair investigations where want is, the same can not be said about Raila’s side of the coalition, the nusu mkate. The only ones that leave the government from his (Raila's) nusu mkate are only those who fall out with him. 

We need a president who will be fair and will not shy off when political, or and government’s responsibility is asked for.

Who is your president 2013?

To be continued.

Njoro.