Jubilee Coalition Must Rise Up to Issue Based Campaigning

By Micah Kigen

Two weekend meetings addressed by Jubilee Coalition leaders as they declared the beginning of their campaigns for the next general elections should awaken Kenyans to some tough choices ahead.

In a monotonously repeated chorus, the Uhuru Kenyatta led outfit, both at Tononoka rally and the Kasarani Sports Gymnasium Delegates' Conference painted themselves champions of generational change and the vehicle for Kenyan Youths to ascend to power, while painting the CORD coalition as an outfit for the retiring generation.

In the Tononoka meeting Uhuru Kenyatta openly attacked the CORD Coalition as a puppet of unnamed Western governments who if they win power will be directed by the foreign powers.

Unknown to Uhuru and his flower girls in the Presidential race, Kenyans could easily pick out the hidden details in his propaganda. In the Western Powers outbursts we all know it to be a ploy to hoodwink Kenyan Muslims to abandon the CORD as he falsely believes the Muslim Community has a big grudge with Western countries.

In the generational Change message the Gatundu South MP is hiding the fact that he fears working with older and more experienced Kenyans who know that he is a project of the Kenya's dirty former oligarchs' who flashed the independence dream and planted the seeds of ethnicity, corruption, assassinations and dictatorships.

We know for sure the Honorable Uhuru Kenyatta has hired foreign experts from the same Western countries who have advised him that because he lacks national support he should engineer divisive propaganda and spread it ruthlessly to confuse Kenyans so that he can be able to pick a few stray votes.

One area the Western propaganda experts have told him to work on powerfully is to bastardize the older generation in the eyes of the younger generation so that no reference is made to the extreme transgressions of past regimes that borrowed heavily from his own father's dictatorship of 1963 to 1978.

That is why he is calling on the youths of Kenya to rebel and defy African traditions and kick out the elder generation from participation in the coming general elections.

But Uhuru and his team's short memory let them down on the fact that Kenyans could easily read between the lines to even note that they were employing old KANU tricks in getting endorsement to be candidates , thus a clear indication that the Jubilee Alliance is a sneaky but determined reincarnation of Kanu dictatorship before 1992.

That is why the richest politician in it (Uhuru) bullied all others to bag the Presidential ticket. That is why noisy William Ruto was bullied into accepting to be subservient to Uhuru. That is why Charity Ngilu and Najib Balala were intimidated into becoming mere escorts of Uhuru instead of going through a democratic process.

As William Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta chest thumped at Kasarani sports gymnasium Sunday afternoon proclaiming the Jubilee Coalition to be the team of the future, Kenyans could not help but marvel at the loud ceremony to endorse the TNA leader devoid of any democratic process by leaders who just a week ago had so loudly insisted on an election by delegates in the acrimonious standoff with UDF’s Musalia Mudavadi.

It was all surprising as Mrs. Charity Ngilu of NARC, a known key player in the second liberation that fought for increased democratic space in Kenya sat meekly to be donated to a junior seat in the alliance instead of going for a full blown election.

Theirs was Double standards in huge doses. Just when did the organs of URP, NARC and Republican Congress Party agree to become subordinate to TNA?”

It was all shocking for self proclaimed democrats and leaders of youths to re-invent old Kanu’s “Kura ya Makelele” in picking Uhuru as presidential candidate at Kasarani.

The message clearly is that in the Jubilee alliance the “youth” being touted is of mere age but neither of ideas nor ideals.

They actually confirmed what Prime Minister Raila Odinga has always told Kenyans:- that there are some young men in this country with very archaic. Old and retrogressive ideas even as they shout –youth, youth , youth: whereas there are wise old men who have embraced and refined new, progressive ideas that are needed to steer this country into the future to greater achievements.

Back to Tononoka, Saturday's fake allegations by Uhuru during Jubilee's damage Control rally to the effect that CORD coalition leaders are puppets of Western countries should be treated with utter contempt.

The National Alliance (TNA) leader Uhuru Kenyatta who uttered those allegations while trying to paint his wobbly Jubilee Alliance as home grown and Pan Africanist should not play around with the intelligence of Kenyans.

We know for sure that Mr. Uhuru and his running mate William Ruto have hinged their Presidential campaign on lies that the International Criminal Court (ICC) which is handling their Crimes against Humanity Charges at the Hague is a tool of Western Countries who have been lured by their local political opponents to stop them from participating in the coming General Elections.

It is Common knowledge that that shallow propaganda got a real beating and their campaign became shaky when the ICC loudly informed the whole World that the two were free to contest and that the Court would not interfere.

Things got worse for Uhuru Kenyatta when it became apparent that he bulldozed William Ruto from the Presidential race and was treating all parties and communities in his coalition as junior partners to his localized Central Kenya outfit that is TNA.

Kenyans and the World witnessed firsthand how they desperately sought out UDF's Musalia Mudavadi to help them survive but when the dictatorship in their coalition and Uhuru's personal feeling of entitlement to Power crashed the UDF deal, they are now trying to revive the dirty propaganda about the Western Powers conspiracy in Kenyan politics.

Uhuru should be told in no uncertain terms that his efforts to demonize opponents using conspiracy theories will not wash.
It is an open secret that of all the top politicians in this country, more so those vying for the Presidency, Mr. Kenyatta and his family have more business and social interests in Western capitals than any other. He went to school in America, his children have schooled there variously and their business empire struts much of Western Europe.

The same cannot be said about our top leaders in the CORD coalition who are least Western leaning. The only difference with Uhuru is that he knows that given his unpleasant political record and his current tribulations , leaders from the civilized World and advanced democracies epitomized by Western Super Powers would be hesitant to warm up to him whether CORD existed or not. He is politically stinking, and he knows that.

Therefore Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta's outburst should be seen more of a temper tantrum by a man put down by deep fear of impending defeat at the hands of Kenyans who love their country and are supporting CORD.

Besides, his was a hidden attempt to divert the attention of the residents of Coast Province from the bigger Land question that his family has questions to answer, by trying to portray himself as an enemy of the West whom he believes the majority Muslim population at the Coast dislike.

He should be reminded that the West are Kenya's biggest business partners, economic partners and cultural partners. No sane Kenyans can buy into his attempt at trying to drive a wedge with the West when even he himself is readily dealing with the same West in various ways.

A case in point is his preference for British lawyers in his ICC case, European managers in their family business and American consultants on the coming general elections. Why, is the West is that bad?

He should be told in no uncertain terms that "SIKU ZA MWIZI NI ARUNBAINI" His forty days are here with us.
 
Next time he goes visiting Coast province he should be reminded to explain why the bloodletting in the Tana Delta and insecurity in Mombasa yet the minister for Internal Security Mr. Katoo Ole Metito is his crony and appointee? Why they have large tracks of land in Coast Province and prime plots when locals are squatters and why he is quiet about the drugs menace in Coast province.

Writer is Chairman - FORA (Friends of Raila) Lobby Group