Trouble in Wiperland has serious ramifications for Cord coalition

Make no mistake, there can only be one winner from a confrontation between Kalonzo Musyoka and Senator Johnson Muthama: the Wiper party leader.

Still, it took a lot of guts on Kalonzo’s part to publicly tell off a hitherto bosom ally who enjoys being referred to as the party’s financier. It was so out of character it made headlines.

The dressing down that occurred at Sultan Hamud during a meet-the-people tour across the Nairobi-Mombasa highway apparently was not pre-planned.

It was triggered by an intemperate attack by Muthama on Kamba leaders who had opted for parties other than Wiper. The assault on the senator’s arch-foe, Governor Alfred Mutua of Machakos and his Maendeleo Chap Chap movement, was to be expected.

However, it was the onslaught on Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana – who incidentally goes out of his way to get on well with the Wiper leadership despite being elected on an oufit called Muungano – that got Kalonzo really hot behind the collar.

Ostensibly Kalonzo got angry because the cantankerous Muthama was upending the Kamba unity mission Wiper had embarked on. But what was surprising was that he had more beans on the senator he was ready to spill.

MADE UP HIS MIND

In what amounted to a bombshell coming from Wiper, Kalonzo testily accused Muthama of colluding with ODM’s Senator James Orengo of Siaya to sideline him from being the joint Cord presidential candidate. (Muthama and Orengo, together with Tongaren MP Eseli Simiyu of Ford-Kenya, form a team that is supposedly working on a formula of who this candidate will be).

Nobody knows what method the Muthama-Orengo-Eseli committee is using. It is not even clear there is one. Yet if there is something the Sultan Hamud flare-up confirmed, it is that Kalonzo will be on the 2017 presidential ballot come what may, whether on a Wiper or Cord or whichever other ticket, and whatever the Muthama committee comes up with.

The Wiper leader already seemed to have made up his mind that this committee has settled on somebody else for the Cord ticket.

Kalonzo’s direction will definitely have wider implications for the Cord coalition and opposition politics in general. Cord cannot continue being so when the candidate of the second largest constituent party opts for a solo presidential run. That would, in effect, amount to exiting the coalition.

The terrain gets murkier as the so-called national super alliance (NASA) Musalia Mudavadi has been trying to market has yet to take shape with those it intends to rope in wary of a vehicle that they think is designed for Musalia’s own candidacy.

There is the possibility that Wiper could decide to link up with Ford-Kenya and leave Raila Odinga alone to run under ODM. Already the signs are that Cord is more a label than a concrete reality. Recently Wiper officials announced that their party would support Ford-Kenya’s senatorial candidate for Mombasa, whereas Ford-Kenya promised to support Wiper’s gubernatorial candidate, who is Hassan Omar.

WIPER UPPED ANTE

Do you want to tell me that this is the face of a coalition reading from the same page?

Wiper upped the ante when their executive committee met last Tuesday and announced that the party’s national delegates conference will meet on December 10 to endorse Kalonzo as their presidential candidate. Kalonzo has persistently advocated that the Cord presidential pick be made before the end of the year.

ODM, on the other hand, argues that there is time and has suggested March as a suitable date. (Notably, this would not allow any would-be defectors much time to organise and mount a credible presidential challenge).

Muthama did not attend the Wiper executive committee meeting. Instead he appeared at a Cord management committee press conference with Orengo and others. When asked why he skipped the Wiper event, he snapped that the Cord function was more important.

And, in a gem of political-speak, he claimed that what Kalonzo was expressing at Sultan Hamud was the concern that Cord must win the coming General Election.

The senator is a big-mouthed busybody who rubs many people the wrong way. In particular there exists a deep feud between him and President Uhuru Kenyatta arising from some crass remark he made prior to the 2013 elections.

The speculation that Muthama could feel pressured to decamp from Wiper for ODM is misconceived. Such a move would mean the abrupt end of the senator’s political career in Ukambani.

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