Joseph Kamotho: How Kanu’s ‘cockerel’ perfected art of political survival

In the 1980s and early ‘90s, he was widely regarded as the third most influential political figure in Kenya after President Daniel Toroitich arap Moi and his close political associate and minister Nicholas Biwott.

Within the ruling party Kanu, John Joseph Kamotho commanded a lot of respect among loyalists.

But so much water had gone under the bridge for the former party kingpin at the time of his death, aged 72, in a South African hospital on Saturday.

He has been suffering from hypertension and a heart condition.

Signs that his health was waning were evident at a political rally in his Mathioya Constituency, Murang’a County, in 2012.

BOOED AND HECKLED

The veteran politician nearly collapsed when locals booed and heckled him while demanding that he publicly declares his support for presidential aspirant and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta.

The former Mathioya MP had to be physically assisted from the podium and given a soft drink to boost his blood sugar.

But in disregard of his failing health and growing political irrelevance, Kamotho still vied for the post of senator for Murang’a County under the Grand National Union (GNU) party in last year’s General Election.

This was the first election under the country’s new Constitution promulgated in August 2010. As widely expected, Kamotho lost to the suave Kembi Gitura of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s TNA. Mr Gitura is the current deputy speaker of the Senate.

Holder of a master’s degree in Economics and Political Science, Kamotho first entered the political arena when he won the Kangema parliamentary seat in 1979, a year and some months after Daniel arap Moi took over the reins of power, following the death of Kenya’s first president, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta.

As a Kanu loyalist, he was immediately appointed to the Cabinet by President Moi. Kamotho retained both his parliamentary seat and Cabinet position.

In the farcical queue-voting of the 1988 General Election, he was beaten hands down by John Njoroge Michuki, who would later be a no-non-sense Cabinet minister in President Mwai Kibaki’s government, before his death in February 2012.

At the country’s return to political pluralism in 1991, several opposition parties were formed to challenge Kanu’s political monopoly that had been anchored in the country’s Constitution since October 1982.

DEFEATED BY MICHUKI

The main opposition parties were the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Ford) — which later split into Ford-Kenya, headed by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, and Ford-Asili whose leader was Kenneth Matiba — the Democratic Party (DP) of Mwai Kibaki and Dr Julia Ojiambo’s Labour Party of Kenya.

In the 1992 elections, Kamotho was defeated once again by Michuki, who had transferred his loyalty from Kanu to Matiba’s Ford–Asili. Having been a great servant of the party, Kanu nominated Kamotho to parliament when it retained power against a divided opposition.

After the loss, Kamotho would contemptuously remark that “even a dog would have been elected on a Ford Asili ticket.” He was again nominated as MP in January 1998 after another loss in 1997 elections, which President Moi and Kanu won.

In August 1998, Kamotho, who had been appointed a minister, and US Ambassador Prudence Bushnell, survived a terror attack on the US Embassy in Nairobi, which killed 241 Kenyans.

To his credit, Kamotho bounced back politically in 2002 after he ditched Kanu to join Kibaki’s Democratic Party in the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc).

It was Narc that finally brought a semblance of political and ethnic unity to challenge Kanu’s long political dominance.

As the fifth and the longest-serving secretary-general of Kanu, Kamotho, popularly known as JJ, was the most senior politician from Central Province during much of President Moi’s 24-year reign.

Under Moi, Kamotho held several powerful ministries, among them Education, Transport and Communication, Trade and Industry, and Local Government.

While at the apex of his career, Kamotho was among the most trusted and hawkish Moi confidants. He helped mould a number of politicians who are still in the arena today.

Before plunging into politics in 1979, Kamotho was the director of the Kenya Institute of Management (1972 -1974). He was also the manpower development officer (1971-1972) at East African Airways and a lecturer (1968-1971) at Kenya Institute of Administration.

From the first time he joined politics in 1979, Kamotho survived many intrigues in the Moi regime until 1998 when he was outsmarted and had to relinquish the position of Kanu secretary-general to Raila Amolo Odinga, whose Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had merged with Kanu.

Kamotho survived many more political intrigues and turbulence, almost to the very end of the Moi regime in 2002.

As his political power — in a career that spanned more than two decades — began to wane, Kamotho became less significant and almost irrelevant in the changing politics of central Kenya.

At the height of the Moi and Kanu autocracy, Kamotho chose the soft route, making sure he was as close as possible to the ruling clique, that often detained political opponents and wantonly plundered national resources.

DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED

As the Kanu and Moi pointman in central Kenya and the surrounding regions, Kamotho had to go against the sentiments and wishes of both his Mathioya constituents and the people of the wider Central Province by becoming an irritating mouthpiece of what critics regarded an oppressive and corrupt regime.

In the political contests for leadership of Kangema, Kamotho and his rival Michuki took diametrically opposed positions.

Though a popular leader at the grassroots, Michuki did not curry favour with the Moi regime.

It was JJ who was Moi’s favourite to lead the Kikuyu and central Kenya.

To many of his critics, Kamotho’s strong adherence to the Moi regime only benefited him personally.

And when the Kanu political behemoth finally lost its first election in 2002, the die was cast for the decline of Kamotho’s political career.