By PHILIP OCHIENG
Posted Saturday, January 26 2013 at 17:14
Posted Saturday, January 26 2013 at 17:14
Like all liberal constitutions, Kenya’s guarantees the right to participate in all electoral processes. There is no bar apart from age and certain conditions to do with crime. Moreover, “participatory democracy” is not just the vote. It also means freedom to stand for office.
In other words, no person can be barred from seeking office merely because he or she is related to a high-powered national statesman. To disqualify the children of Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Moses Mudavadi — suchlike — on that account is to violate the constitutional rights of those individuals.
Thus, notwithstanding Raila Odinga’s imperious national presence, Ruth Odinga and Oburu Oginga have the right to hold elective offices at all levels of the Republic. In the “game of politics”, the only bar I am aware of that can override this law may be subsumed by the category of tactics and self-respect.
I give the example of the Odingas because that name has dominated political choice among my Luo people for many generations. I would have liked Peter Kenneth or James ole Kiyiapi as our next president. But I must add — even at the risk of being branded a tribalist — that, of the other candidates, Mr Odinga is my preference.
However, precisely because of it, I feel duty-bound to make the tactical point that it would terribly harm Mr Odinga’s cause if so many siblings stood for important offices because — in a generation of heightened social consciousness — the Luo youth may interpret it as an attempt by Mr Odinga to intensify the Odinga family’s traditional hold on that community.
In other words, vaulting sibling ambitions could boomerang on the ODM’s presidential candidate. That is where self-respect comes in. Had Miss Odinga and the Assistant Finance Minister drummed up a sense of proportion (and expressed it humbly), they would not have jeopardised their own brother’s bid. They would have held on to their gubernatorial ambitions till a time suitable to him.
Why? Because — away from Nyanza — the name “Odinga” is synonymous with the name “Luo” and thus inspires profound fear. If the two Odingas were aware of the violent ripples that the name “Luo” occasions in the national pond of politics, they would know that, by seeking offices as high as the governor’s, they are greatly imperilling their own brother’s chances of entering State House.
Misguided enthusiasm
Secondly, were you, the reader, caressed by the arrogance, high-handedness and misguided enthusiasm with which party officials handled Oburu Oginga’s case? Did the grating contradictions between ODM secretary-general Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o and electoral chief Franklin Bett endear you to the party and its candidate?
The outrage heard from all parts of “Luo Nyanza” about the botching up of the party’s nomination process was not admirable, to say the least. It was verily reminiscent of the tragi-comedy characteristic of the hand-picking by Moi’s officials during Kanu’s autocracy. Many supporters of Raila Odinga feel betrayed, alienated and disenchanted.
But the Luo were not the only culprits. Despite attempts by certain media houses to depict the ODM and Luo Nyanza as the nigger-in-the-woodpile, the situation was not a lot better among the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. Throughout Central Province and the Rift Valley, there was an equally hideous outcry about rigging.
After so many decades of childish politics — even after the mayhem of January, 2008 — our party leaders have not learned even a single lesson from the catastrophes that can engulf a nation whenever some of its officials try to make unfair gains by tampering with the agreed democratic method of latching onto leaders.
That is why I agree with the suggestion that, until we learn that lesson, we should put all electoral processes — including those of political parties — in the hands of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and transform it into a national political education college.
ochiengotani@ke.nationmedia.com
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