Only mother time will save Kenya from grip of Kenyattas and Odingas

History has refused to unchain Kenya. For about half the time since independence, the main dynamic in the nation’s politics has been the drama between the Kenyattas and the Odingas.

In the 1960s and 70s, it was one of several fault-lines in the country. Today, it is the only one.

Virtually every politically conscious adult is either pro-Odinga or pro-Kenyatta.

Forget about whether one favours a referendum or not or supports governors against the Senate, or is inclined towards “dialogue” or against it, or believes the March 4 election was fair or foul; all these are just mere labels that determine whether one is an Odinga or Kenyatta supporter.

That is not of itself a bad thing — political dynasties have existed in many places in the world, with mixed results.

The problem is that in an environment where supporters take the cue for what they should like or dislike, which communities are enemies or friends (until alliances shift at the next election) and generally how to behave in public or in the privacy of the voting booth, it helps if politicians exercise the enormous power they wield over their subjects responsibly.

POLITICS OF EXCLUSION

Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga have not been very responsible over the last year. Uhuru’s sin is an attempt to rule mainly for his winning coalition and the very clear politics of exclusion that was a feature especially of the early months of his presidency.

For Raila, the problem is that he has decided that Kenya will be the only country in the developing world that will attempt to achieve economic take-off while engaged in permanent campaigns.

In a sense, the Migori shoe-throwing drama, and the cane saga in Kwale, are a reflection of a fatigue with the Odinga and Kenyatta style of politics.

First, Uhuru. When the Cabinet was being constituted, I had a conversation with a State House insider who said that UhuRuto would not make the mistake Kibaki made by appointing “too many Mwakweres and Tujus who don’t bring votes” and would instead reward loyalists with an eye on the next election.

That was the logic behind the exclusionary decisions that cemented the view of Jubilee as ruling only for its “tyranny of numbers” constituency and fed discontent in other parts of the country.

It was an unwise approach because in a Kenya where people scrutinise and analyse public appointments almost like an ethnic football league where each appointment represents a point gained and every sacking is a point lost, it made the job of governing so much harder when the rulers decided to turn their backs on half the country.

The logic of the youth in Migori was that they cannot be forced to love a government that appears hostile to them.

ECONOMIC DECLINE

Then there is Odinga. I once saw a very interesting report by Prof Karuti Kanyinga of the Institute of Development Studies which examined the effect of Kenyan elections and referendums going back to the 1990s on agricultural output and economic growth.

He compared Kenya and other countries such as Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa.

The finding was that elections in those countries have zero effect on growth while in Kenya every time political temperatures rise, the economy goes into decline because Kenyan politics is a cut-throat, winner-takes-all, battle to the death affair.

It is good that Kenya has one of the most vibrant political scenes on the continent but when campaigns become a permanent fixture of life in a poor country — and the economy is not centred around some offshore oil deposits or remote diamond mines which are immune to the problems caused by political uncertainty and anxiety — you are attempting to make progress by cycling backwards.

I deplore all forms of violence and think that anyone who advocates fighting after the age of nine should have his head checked.

But Raila’s obsession with high-octane, it-is-me-or-nothing politics, which has no peer anywhere else on the continent, does not do himself or the country any favour.

Still, there is hope because, in the next decade and half at most, the Kenyatta and Odinga dynasties will no longer be at the centre of power and Kenyans will finally exhale.

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