I read with dismay Omar Ali’s article in the Sunday Times of June 8, in which he attempted to equate Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka’s political fortunes to those of US Democratic party presidential nominee Barack Obama. What Ali fails to understand is that Obama inspires hope and prosperity in his people while Kalonzo does not.
Obama stands for change that his people can believe in but I doubt if Kenyans can believe anything Kalonzo says given his flip-flop character. Ali tries to convince his audience that Kalonzo is the undisputed leader of Ukambani politics and that this makes him a front-runner in the Kibaki succession. This kind of spin is laughable and I think Ali has been getting his ideas from cartoons.
I remember sometime in March an editorial cartoon in one of the daily newspapers placing Kalonzo at an advantage in a track relay race that included Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Deputy Prime Ministers Musalia Mudavadi and Uhuru Kenyatta. There is no doubt Ali got his ideas about Kalonzo’s superiority from this particular cartoon.
But all these conceded, assuming that being Vice President and Ukambani’s most senior politician makes one a future king, how do these credentials make Kalonzo most favourite Kibaki successor? I think Ali has been living out of the country for too long to realise how unpopular Kalonzo is. I hope Ali knows somebody called Moody Awori who is Kalonzo’s predecessor.
During the 2007 election campaigns, Kalonzo became his own enemy when he failed to read the mood of the country and realise that Kenyans would vote for real change and they would still do so in 2012. For selfish interests or political miscalculation, Kalonzo chose to scuttle what would have been a winning combination in the Orange family to pursue his own presidential ambition.
He failed and went ahead to accept from Kibaki the very Vice Presidency that he would have been offered had he remained in a united Orange family. This move earned Kalonzo the tag of a traitor and there are no indications he will have washed off that tag by the next general election in 2012. Infact many Kenyans today blame Kalonzo for the post-election crisis, saying that had he chosen to remain in a united Orange family or backed Kibaki, there would have been a clear winner at the election and no bloodshed.More In Print Edition
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Kenya Times
John Onyando,
Nairobi
Updated on: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 Story by:
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