Election was not rigged, Raila rigged out of the election

Ten reasons why Raila lost the March 4 vote.

By Patrick Wafula

pwwanyama@yahoo.com

I am not one of those political pundits like Mutahi Ngunyi of the Tyranny of Numbers fame, or Barrack Muluka or Magut. But I feel, with a lot of conviction, that if you let me take you through my 10 good reasons why RAO lost, and lost fairly, you will learn some totally new political facts.

First of all, I want to clarify that am not stating that the General Election was rigged; nope. It was RAO who was rigged out of the General Election. And here are the reasons.

The Mau Forest Issue

Mr. Raila has zeal and passion for what he does, but in politics, one needs expediency and prudence. When his office was empowered by President Kibaki to be in charge of recovering all stolen public land, little did Raila decipher the far reaching political reverberations this matter would have in the Rift Valley, his 2007 political bed rock.

Mr. Raila took up the matter with great personal zeal, even though it was a cabinet decision, and ensured all the illegal Mau squatters were out of Mau. Politically, these were ‘his voters’ but because of his deficiency in political prudence, he saw them as illegal squatters. Of course Raila was convinced he was undertaking a noble national cause, for the greater good of the nation; that is true.

However, if we critically scrutinize the underlying political scheming behind the Mau issue, we today realize that only someone who is politically naïve can fail to see the bigger, long term scheme behind the issue. Let us postulate: why would Raila be given the task of recovering all stolen or illegally acquired public land? Where is most of this stolen land found? Who are the majority of the thieves? Of course the answers are obvious: most of the stolen land is in the Rift Valley and Coastal Province.

These are regions where Raila had massive following in 2007. In other words, he was being asked to beat up his own voters, and beat them up he did. If Raila and his advisers were prudent, he could have first of all forced the cabinet and all the international supporters of the Mau Restoration Project to find enough money to buy land for the re-settlement of the squatters and then the eviction would have followed. This approach, I am quite certain, would have yielded huge political dividends for him. He could have stood very firm and told the cabinet: “No money for resettlement, no evictions!” He could have told the international community to do the same.

Once the money was available, Raila would have bought land and inaugurated the transfer, not eviction, of Mau squatters, in great political pomp and colour. This would have made him a hero, not a villain. But evicting old men and women, and children from their only domiciles, rendering them homeless and out of school, was callous, when the rains beat down on the poor folks in torn tents, and their children fell sick, some even died of malaria or pneumonia.

Which political opponent could not make political capital out of such emotional pictures? And they did. Quite telling was the conspicuous missing of President Kibaki at the inaugural tree planting day at the Mau Forest. Why didn’t Raila learn the lesson on that day?  We call this political naivety.

But alas! Once he got into government, my political hero lost all his political acumen, prudence and scheming, and instead acquired a new political naivety.

Sharing out the half-loaf in the coalition government

There was no political prudence and expediency in giving Ruto the Agriculture Ministry when his Rift Valley had racked into the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) over 3 million votes, while allotting Musalia Mudavadi Deputy Premiership, when his Western base had managed a mere 300,000 votes.

Actually, Ruto brought in ten times more votes than Mudavadi. So, I ask once more: what political expediency, prudence and strategy was in this formula? I see only what we can call political blunder. Raila blundered here. Ruto should have been given the second top prize, only after the Premiership itself.  To make it even worse, for three years, Raila did totally nothing to placate Ruto; he reacted instead of acting on every complaint arising from this discontent.

When a human need is not satisfied, it becomes a want. And when it becomes a want, the person becomes wanting, restless. What did Raila do about it? Tell Ruto off, while pulling closer to himself, the likes of Miguna Miguna. Of what political value was Miguna Miguna to Raila, if I may ask? Did we hear of Miguna Miguna when Ruto and Raila were campaigning? Of what value was he, then to Raila? Why didn’t the Prime Minister learn from Kibaki: you bring in only people who have political or economic value to you.

Raila would have rather brought in the waggish Joshua Kuttuny than bringing in the overly egocentric and eccentric Miguna Miguna, who eventually caused him massive damage through the books he wrote.

In addition, Mr Mudavadi was of no much political value to Raila. Mudavadi has a history of gullibility and unscrupulousness; I mean, he is lacking in the firmness and principleness we see in the likes of Ruto. Did Raila think Mudavadi, a protégé of Moi, would have stuck with him till the end?

Again, why would Raila surround himself with mostly Luos who never fought for him to rise to the Coalition Government? And disband the Pentagon? What political logic was in the disbanding of the Pentagon? Why did he not allow the Pentagon to continue running the affairs of ODM? This was an obvious, needless, stupid political blunder.

The Hague Issue

Raila made a terrible, costly political blunder on the way he handled Ruto on this matter. He should have learned from Kibaki: you can overtly and audibly appear to support Hague, but covertly and tacitly you support your foot-soldiers personally, emotionally, socially, politically, financially, spiritually, psychologically, legally, to fight against the Hague. Raila missed this. Or if I may put it the other way round, he thought it was a blessing in disguise, thus leaving everything to natural course, hoping Hague would take away Ruto, who was by then bitterly lamenting of being short-changed in the ODM party.

You do not dump your foot soldiers while still there is war to be fought. Raila and his handlers isolated Ruto and left him to face Hague alone. I will never understand the expediency behind this, given that in 2007/2008, Ruto was a hero and a darling of ODM. Why and when he turned into the Hague villain, denounced by his own Party and left at the mercy of The Hague, I will never understand.

What was more revealing is that in the second presidential debate, Martha Karua politely refuted Raila’s claim that he and Kibaki had spent a lot of time in parliament rallying MPs to support a local tribunal. Indeed, I agree with her that the two principals did almost nothing to rally their supporters for the local tribunal. Did ODM as a party meet and pass a resolution to support the local tribunal? If a party issues an order for its supporters to take a stand on a particular matter, it is usually obeyed; those don’t obey are usually disciplined. We didn’t see these concerted efforts in both PNU and ODM at that particular time.

The two parties handled the Hague matter with lackluster and haphazardness, which resulted in a disjointed House.

MORE REASONS TO FOLLOW SOON.

Patrick Wafula is a haiku poet and an author of short stories including From Darkness To Light and Awakening To Marriage among others.

First published in March 2013.