Search for unity valid but some folks must tame their tongues

Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho addresses people gathered for the unveiling of the Opposition coalition at Bomas of Kenya on January 11, 2017. The governor should respect the president of Kenya. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The Nasa leaders realised that demagoguery does not always amount to voter mobilisation, which is crucial during elections.
  • There is nothing illegitimate about them exploring ways to get out the vote with the singular aim of defeating their opponents.

It was refreshing to see five old men getting down to a jig at the Bomas of Kenya during a meeting billed as the official launch of the National Super Alliance (Nasa), an association of opposition parties seeking to unite with the aim of defeating the Jubilee Party during the elections.

This being January, a bleak month all round, it was a spectacle that many had been looking forward to.

There is nothing like a lively party to make Kenyans forget their woes, and in that sense, this one lived up to its billing.

However, to many who watched it at a distance, the gabfest was distinctly underwhelming.

Many people expected fireworks, the kind that only Cord can conjure.

Perhaps they expected a major announcement, the naming of the super-alliance’s presidential flag-bearer — the man who will take Jubilee head-on in August and defeat it.

So they felt cheated, but the fledgling Nasa wisely decided to hold its horses.

Wise because in such moments of false triumphalism are the seeds of eventual disintegration sown.

At the very least, it was expected that the Nasa leaders would decide when to pour into the streets and demonstrate against the passage and signing into law of the amendments to the Elections Act, which has been the bone of contention between Jubilee and the Opposition since last month.

Indeed, many of their followers expected to be told the way forward, but this didn’t happen either.

All they were informed was that the amendments were a Jubilee ploy to rig the elections.

CRUDE STATEMENTS
The reason for this unusual timidity was that this was not part of the agenda, and most of the leaders decided to stick to the message they wanted to deliver: if you want to kick out Jubilee, acquire the vote.

This was a simple message, perhaps in the recognition that the Opposition has, since the days of the re-introduction to pluralism in 1991, mistaken populism for popularity, forgetting that the huge numbers that attend fiery political rallies do not always vote.

The Nasa leaders realised that demagoguery does not always amount to voter mobilisation, which is crucial during elections.

What was most impressive was that on the whole, the Opposition chiefs stayed on the message.

For a change, frontal abuse of Jubilee leaders didn’t happen unlike in the past when such behaviour appeared to be the actual message -- that Jubilee had to go home to pay for its sins of omission and commission.

That, to me, was a perfectly legitimate objective, but only if delivered with maturity and civility.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with political players joining hands to fight a common enemy.

There is nothing illegitimate about them exploring ways to get out the vote with the singular aim of defeating their opponents.

That is democracy at work. Indeed, if it is done with a modicum of decorum and not incitement, it becomes vibrant in a way that Kenyans have not experienced since 2002.

Unfortunately, two individuals managed to spoil the whole effect, for they could not resist the allure of crude personal digs at the country’s leadership.

RESPECT UHURU

One of them seems to have developed a bad case of hubris, while the other is, apparently, afflicted with verbal diarrhoea, for he cannot seem to control what comes out of his mouth once he opens it.

There is nothing as ridiculous as someone trying to win an argument by going for the person instead of addressing the issues.

There was no reason whatsoever for Senator Johnson Muthama to utter his customary inanities during such an important ceremony.

As for Governor Ali Hassan Joho, he has become so conceited that he seems to believe everyone, including the President, should pay him homage each time he visits Coast.

Joho got away with belittling and humiliating the President in public last year, and then repeated the same thing a week ago.

What these people seem to forget is that President Kenyatta was elected by more than six million Kenyans in 2013 and in this capacity, he is the symbol of our nationhood.

Common sense would dictate that however popular you think you are, in African tradition, when a distinguished personality visits your homestead, you do not humiliate him in the hearing of your children; you settle your differences out of earshot.

To paraphrase the poet, whom the gods would destroy, they first make unutterably insolent.