Kibaki’s rally in Eldoret raises eyebrows

President Kibaki last Friday made a grand entrance at Eldoret in a symbolic move that announced the changing fortunes of his co-principal in the grand coalition government and his main opponent in 2007, Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

The gathering had been billed as a national reconciliation and healing rally, but it was full of political undertones coming as it did only a week after Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP William Ruto announced in Kericho that they were working together in the approach to elections next year.

The meeting attended by more than 60 MPs from across the country was held against the backdrop of heightened political tension pitting Rift Valley MPs allied to Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga with the latter’s erstwhile closest allies drifting away.

The region, which boasts 33 MPs of the total 49 in the larger Rift Valley that is home to more than 3 million voters, rallied behind Mr Odinga in 2007, but that support fell off immediately after the formation of the grand coalition government because of Mau forest evictions which Mr Odinga spearheaded and over where and how to try post-election violence suspects.

The President was expected to address Kalenjin concerns about an increasing feeling of alienation. In an unparalleled move, he seemed to endorse the new alliance by parading Mr Ruto before the ecstatic crowd and telling them he agreed with all he had said.

Last Monday, Agriculture minister Sally Kosgei and her East African Community counterpart Prof Hellen Sambili, former Industrialisation minister Henry Kosgey, Belgut MP Charles Keter and Mr Ruto met President Kibaki at his Harambee House office and secured the visit in record short notice in a move that fuelled speculation it was being organised exclusively by the Ruto camp to hit back at Mr Odinga.

Roads minister Franklin Bett, who is still seen to be close to the PM, told the Sunday Nation in an interview that he had been left out of the organisation but said he would attend if invited.

“Mwai Kibaki is the President of Kenya, and nobody has monopoly over him,” he said.

The planned demolition of a number of buildings to pave way for the expansion of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport-Museum Hill-Gilgil road is the latest issue over which the region’s MPs have differed with their party.

On Wednesday, Mr Bett and Lands minister James Orengo insisted that the buildings, which include Safaricom House and parts of the Standard Group Centre, would have to go down. But in a quick rejoinder, MPs Isaac Ruto and Joshua Kutuny said the government did not have to destroy property worth billions of shillings to build a road of much less value.

Mr Bett was booed at the Eldoret rally, apparently for his stand on the demolitions, which were seen in some quarters as targetting the investments of former president Daniel arap Moi. There is a perception in the province that ODM seems to be targeting the Kalenjin community right from the “small man” in Mau forest to its past and current leaders.

“Going by the threat against the Standard Group Centre and the Kiptagich Tea Factory, both of which are associated with Moi, as well as the fact that all the three suspects named by Ocampo from ODM come from the Kalenjin community, one gets the feeling that we are being targeted,” said Konoin MP Dr Julius Kones.

The move to address these concerns as a way of wooing the community seems to be well co-ordinated. Mr Musyoka and other Kibaki emissaries are involved in frantic shuttle diplomacy across Africa to rally states behind a plan to try post-election violence suspects in Kenya.

It was in this context that the VP was photographed last Monday taking tea in a dilapidated camp in Mau as was Friday’s assurance by the President that all IDPs will have been resettled by June.

“The President is keen on leaving a legacy, and the IDP situation is potentially a dent on the same. We prevailed on him to have all our people evicted from Mau, Embobut, Kipkurere, Mt Elgon, Marmanet and other areas to be settled too,” said Mr Keter.

It has been the trend for the Rift Valley MPs to warm to President Kibaki whenever their relationship with their party boss is at rock bottom.

For instance, he visited the North Rift in August last year to open the Eldoret Agricultural Society of Kenya show shortly after Mr Odinga suspended Mr Ruto, and he (Mr Kibaki) reinstated him.

While the MPs were at pains to insist that the Friday rally was purely a development and peace meeting, political pundits saw the move as the President’s endorsement of the nascent alliance.

Dr Adams Oloo, the chairman of the department of political science at the University of Nairobi, said that despite their partnership in government, President Kibaki and PM Raila Odinga were still political rivals with Kibaki seeking to influence who his successor will be and Raila trying to clinch the presidency, which evaded him by a whisker in 2007.

“There is no president in the world who does not have a preferred successor. The unfolding scenario is really a continuation of the 2007 political battle,” Dr Aloo said.

He added that President Kibaki did not want to make the mistake Moi did in 2002 when he forced Mr Kenyatta on the party, and he lost the election.

“However, all this is easier said than done. You remember the ODM-Kenya woes when Mr Odinga and others left the party in the run-up to the 2007 elections, and the opposition reduced their chances of winning. The one K that will lose out might move when the two top positions are shared, and this will weaken the new outfit,” he said, adding that the political landscape will change when ODM counters.

But the Ruto camp has tried to dispel claims that the group was ethnic-based by bringing in MPs from Eastern, North Eastern, Coast and Western provinces and rallying them under the banner of a generational change.

“You saw MPs like Sylvester Wakoli from Western Kenya and others from virtually every other province. Is that an ethnic alliance?” asked Mr Keter, who added that the Eldoret rally was meant to show Mr Odinga that they were done with him.

Mr Kosgey’s presence and his remarks at the rally were significant, coming as they did two weeks after 15 MPs allied to the Eldoret North MP visited him at his Lavington home in Nairobi and held talks that lasted more than six hours.

“You have seen the signs. If Dr Kosgei were here, she would have revealed to you that all of us are in this new journey,” said Mr Kosgey when he was pushed by the crowd to declare that he had completely jumped ship.

Dr Kosgei was said to be out of the country sorting out fertiliser issues, which was part of the agenda at the meeting.

Moi University law lecturer Kipchumba Murkomen, however, said in an opinion article last Friday that leaders from the region should not project a siege mentality and that politicising peace building would not bear fruit.

“The so-called KKK alliance is a mere charade intended to defer the problems through a cosmetic alliance, a vehicle for selfish political ends,” he wrote .

The political landscape in the Rift Valley has been unfolding after Mr Ocampo named both Mr Kosgey and Mr Ruto as post-election violence suspects together with radio journalist Joshua arap Sang.

But things came to a head last week when two of Mr Odinga’s hitherto key pillars in the province sent mixed signals on their continued stay in the party.

Citing a heavy work load, Dr Kosgei wrote to the PM asking to be released from her position as deputy leader of government business in Parliament, while Mr Bett announced that he would be a running mate in an unspecified party.

Energy assistant minister Magerer Lang’at, who said he would be vying for a national post in the March ODM elections, criticised his colleagues for their plan to ditch ODM instead of solving the issues at hand.

He said peace could not be achieved by preaching hatred against certain individuals.

While insisting that he was vying for a running mate’s position, Mr Bett said his party of choice would not be tribal. However, he insisted that he would not be defecting from ODM until 2012.

MPs from the region who are still perceived to be Raila’s supporters and have not announced their intention to quit are Mr Lang’at, assistant minister Beatrice Kones and backbenchers Musa Sirma, Dr Joyce Laboso, Wilson Litole and Julius Murgor.

While Mr Odinga has put on a brave face to this onslaught, it remains to be seen how he plans to counter these developments and for how long his few remaining allies in the region will hang on.