Better believe it, there are no foes in politics

COMMENTARY
Story by LUCY ORIANG'
Publication Date: 08/12/2006

BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID. When the political waters become so murky that you have former President Daniel arap Moi and Nicholas Biwott making a comeback into respected society, it is time to take a deep breath and make some hard decisions.

When these unlikely democrats begin to dictate the political tempo, there can be only one way to go – back to the drawing board and into the trenches.

Who would have thought, on December 29, 2002, that the regime we dispatched into the political wilderness would be influencing the direction we take a year to the next poll?

In the name of those who died for the second liberation, and those who suffered the kind of torture that would break the spirit of mere mortals, this needs to be said: Only a very desperate leadership would find it necessary to call back into duty a battalion of people who so thoroughly corrupted democracy in Kenya that we ended up a basket-case in the eyes of the international community.

Only a people who are self-seekers hungry for power – to quote a tiresome refrain that is usually used in reference to people opposing President Kibaki and his so-called government of national unity – can find it in their hearts to contemplate giving even an inch to a discredited cabal that did all it could to bring this country to its knees.

If Kenya is back on track today, it is only because there was a collective, albeit unspoken, decision that nothing would be gained by rehashing the past.

But we did make clear that we wanted a clean break with a less than glorious past.
Yet here we are today, bending the rules – on pain of losing whatever reputation we had – to beef up the Kibaki Government's arsenal ahead of a poll that is bound to be bitter and dirty.

That is a tactic which is, at once, cheap and costly.

The first because the current crop of leaders should have grown up enough by now to stand on their own feet and not need a prop from a man they called names.

The second because – and this I believe with all my being – Kenyans have proved once before that you can push them only so far and, having enjoyed that power, will not be taken for granted ever again.

Even more important, you cannot proclaim that you are proud to be Kenyan and return to the political platform a set of people who detained and systematically ruined people for the great sin of having a mind of their own. And through the back door, too!

IT IS DURING THE MOI REGIME that land clashes – some would call them ethnic cleansing – became the ultimate solution to political dissent. Corruption was the by-word for any economic or political advantage. And now we are cutting deals with this same man?

We spoke in whispers in our homes, lest we be thrown into torture chambers. Someone who worked at the Central Bank, I seem to recall, was even arrested over comments made in a letter to a relative in the US.

Yet we found the strength of will to legitimately throw out a regime that represented the worst that independent Kenya had to offer.

I received hundreds of emails from friends all over the world congratulating us for showing Africa that it was possible to get rid of a despotic regime without resorting to the gun.

Barely four years later, we have Mr Moi having high tea at State House and Mr Biwott the friendly leader of the official opposition. Suddenly we are bedevilled by coups and temper tantrums in just about any political party worth the name – and especially those that are not inclined to toe the Kibaki line.

To be fair, they were just falling back on a tried and tested formula. After all, the man Moi detained three times – Raila Odinga – had no qualms getting into bed with him during the National Development Party days, and also under the umbrella of the Orange Democratic Movement for purposes of last year's referendum.

And now he is in the same camp as the Duke of Kabeteshire, Mr Charles Njonjo. And with the Kanu rebels, the notorious Mr Tony Gachoka and former Head of the Civil Service Sally Kosgei.

I get a headache just trying to figure out the next unlikely member of ODM-Kenya, and who will be vowing undying loyalty to Narc-without-boundaries.

There is a saying that everything that goes up must come down. But we Kenyans, ever contrary, must add our own twist to everything. Here, whatever goes down must come up – especially in politics.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time we stared the truth in the eye and asked ourselves this one question: Where did we lose the plot?