We must all lower our voices now

Back in 2012 while working with this media house as an editor in charge of opinions, I struck an acquaintanceship with a former Gatanga MP David Murathe, who now works with what remains of the Jubilee Party as deputy chairman and favourite bogeyman for those responsible for breaking up the ruling party. He called on me for reasons I can’t remember today and we had an interesting chat. In the course of the conversation, he confided to me that the then deputy prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta was thinking of standing for president with Mr William Ruto as his running mate.

This was the first election after the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution and we were into the fourth year after the 2007-2008 post-election violence, which shook the nation. And now here was my former MP saying his new-fangled political party, The National Alliance (TNA), was considering joining forces with Mr Ruto’s equally newly minted United Republican Party (URP) to seek the presidency. Already, cases against the two were with the International Criminal Court in the Hague and obviously, there existed a bond of kinship between the two who had (allegedly), been on opposite sides during the PEV bloodletting.

Fresh wounds

So, I asked Mr Murathe how it was possible for the two adversaries to join forces now while the 2008 wounds were still fresh and he explained that the obvious reason was so that the two communities, the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin, would never again fight over politics. It sounded eminently reasonable but for some reason – talk of gut feeling –  I remained sceptical and told Mr Murathe as much, though I could not really proffer any cogent reason for my misgivings. In the end, the two leaders did engage in the first “handshake” – which was not televised– and Jubilee was born.

In retrospect, my apprehension about the détente between the two leaders stemmed from two sources: past, well-recorded antagonism between the two communities ostensibly over land issues, and the fact that the two share a sense of entitlement as far as the country’s leadership is concerned.

This has not been healthy for our body politic. As has been often pointed out, the Kikuyu elite have held the reins of power for a cumulative 35 years while the Kalenjin elite, under President Daniel arap Moi, did it for 24 years.

I use the word “elite” deliberately because the hoi polloi has never held power in any sense – they just vote for their “sons” in huge numbers and regard other aspirants as intruders. Our politics is still based on tribe regardless of what the politicians say and how nationalistic they sound on the hustings. Having tasted power, the elite of both communities are loath to see it go elsewhere, which is one of the reasons Mr Odinga has traditionally found it impossible to penetrate the Mt Kenya and Rift Valley regions, which teem with voters.

Anyway, to go back to my story, probably because I too have been properly socialised into thinking in this parochial fashion, in subsequent elections, I proceeded to vote for Jubilee, not once, not twice, but three times in the past 10 years. However, judging from what has been going on in the past four years and the kind of toxic exchanges that have been trumpeted this year, it looks as though I was right all along.

That the President and his deputy have become incompatible bedfellows proves that marriages of convenience and not conviction hardly ever last long before turning toxic.

DP Ruto has been behaving as though he is running for election against two opponents at once – President Kenyatta, and Mr Raila Odinga – and the collateral damage has been considerable, coming at the wrong time in the country’s electoral cycle. Perceptions may not always be correct, but in this case, the President has been unapologetically forthright in his views about whom he favours as successor.

Exit gracefully

One would hope that it all ends well and that the person who loses the next election exits the scene gracefully and the one who wins is magnanimous. There can be only one president at a time and a deputy who will, hopefully, not work at cross-purposes with his or her boss. It is acutely distressing for the country when its top political leadership engages in unhealthy exchanges at the top of their voices, which as clerics have pointed out, is causing mighty jitters in the market. We are a poor country and we certainly could do with a lot less political turbulence.

Restraint, even in the most trying of circumstances, is a virtue, and however angry you may be from feelings of betrayal, it is possible to deliver your message without resorting to vitriol during campaigns. Public anger is a poor recipe for harmony, and the back and forth between an outgoing president and the man who would be president are only fanning the flames of intolerance. Luckily, nobody wishes to be held responsible if things go wrong, which is very reassuring for ordinary citizens who crave peace so they to get on with their dreary lives.

Mr Ngwiri is a consultant editor; [email protected]