Opposition alliance has not helped its cause by fighting itself in its backyards

Forty-three days to the General Election, there is nothing edifying about this campaign.

Yet it is a political party’s duty to educate the electorate, especially on the road to a plebiscite.

That Kenyans learn little or nothing from electoral campaigns does not mean parties are free of such a role.

It means they deliberately refuse to carry out this function.

The Jubilee presidential stump strategy is clear: Tie Mr Raila Odinga, the torchbearer of the rival National Super Alliance (Nasa), to violence.

VERSATILE ARSENAL

The scheme presents President Uhuru Kenyatta, Deputy President William Ruto and party apparatchiks with a versatile arsenal for character assassination, fear mongering and black propaganda.

Because it is wide-ranging, it affords Jubilee various tactical options to attack Mr Odinga and, more importantly, keep him under pressure, on the defensive and tied in knots.

Under pressure, on the defensive and overwhelmed, Mr Odinga will spend time responding to diversionary flimflam instead of prosecuting Nasa’s election agenda.

Two, the Jubilee strategy is calculated to provoke both loathing and fear for Mr Odinga and, by extension, Nasa and to cause revulsion for what he and the alliance preach, to the electorate.

ONE MISSILE

This presents the President, Deputy and Jubilee with a platform from which to destroy the Nasa edifice with one missile.

Simply put, violent people are a risk to unity, cohesion and investment.

Nasa has not helped its cause by fighting itself in its backyards; by having its affiliate parties compete for seats; and its leading lights attack party chiefs and even express support for Jubilee.

Then, it has taken on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission on vote tallying, tenders; rigging plots; and even threatened to boycott the poll altogether.

And all this before it takes the fight for the hearts and minds of Kenyans to the governing party.

STANDARD GAUGE RAILWAY

Jubilee, like Kenya’s 47 governors, has a record showing on what promises it ran and how it has fulfilled them or failed to in governance.

The beauty of running against incumbents is that you show what they have done and failed to do and the consequences of their action or inaction.

Nasa need not just attack the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), for example.

The railway can be compared to the Lunatic Express before it.

The Uganda Railway, for that is its original name, cost the British taxpayer £6.5 million from start in August of 1896 to completion in December of 1901.

COLOSSAL SUM OF MONEY

And so the immediate question became how it would repay that colossal sum of money.

The answer was the establishment of the settler economy in Kenya.

SGR has so far cost US3.6 billion and the issue must be the consequences of long-term debt.

The issue must be why what became the East African Railways and Harbours and later the Kenya Railways (KR) failed and what Nasa has in store to ensure that SGR thrives beginning by learning the lessons of KR.

CONTRIBUTED IDEAS

Mr Odinga has contributed ideas at different fora to the centrality of devolution in Kenya’s future bottoms up development.

An idea that could be developed and woven around SGR is how county governments hosting the railway can empower local people to contribute to urbanisation with the railway stations acting as the impetus of, and motor force for, the development.

Mr Odinga is passionate about the supremacy of land in Kenya’s political economy, historical injustices and the implementation of the shelved Ndung’u Report.

EXPLOSIVE ISSUE

Whatever he wants to do, this is a massive and massively explosive issue.

As Christopher Leo has observed, land is to Kenyans what security is to Israel.

All want a piece of it, but what exactly is Mr Odinga’s plan?

He must answer this question, especially after his statement about invaders of Maasai land stirred up a hornet’s nest, with Jubilee accusing the opposition chief of inciting ethnic hate and violence.

MR VIOLENCE

It is commonplace politics that when a rival’s policies catch traction at your expense, you attack the person to undermine or besmirch and bury the policies in a storm.

Jubilee attacked reflexively because it saw an opportunity to confirm Mr Odinga as Mr Violence.

Indeed, Mr Odinga offered no view on whether willing-buyer-willing-seller basis drives land businesses in Maasailand.

He made the populist statement believing that it would be popular with the local people.

He was, surprisingly, ill-prepared for Jubilee’s whiplash aimed at forcing him into a pig sty fight.

A clear plan would have engendered and kept debate out of the sty.

 Opanga is a commentator with a bias for politics [email protected]