Going for world glory in the shadow of a General Election

What you need to know:

  • As streets became theatres of violent demonstrations in the run-up to the 1988 elections, the Seoul Olympics came by in September and Kenyans momentarily forgot their political differences.
  • The World Athletics Championships of Greece held in August 1997 came a short four months to that year’s General Election.

The twists and turns of fate placed our General Election smack in the middle of the competition programme of the World Athletics Championships in London.

The reigning world champions by medal count won’t be home to vote but they will be performing a sacred duty out there. And it is one that they have done throughout our history like no other category of citizens: being a national source of positive energy.

I am taking it to be a good omen that things have happened that way. There cannot be a better distraction from the politics. It is to London that we shall turn our attention, not to what security forces have mapped out as “hotspots.”

This is, of course, more a wish than a credible expectation. And to those who live in these unfortunately identified places, London will sadly be a million miles away.

This is the fate we have chosen for ourselves. And this gives us a great opportunity to celebrate the greatness and special place that Kenya’s athletics superstars occupy in our lives. We use words in their praise that we do not match in deed. We call them our ambassadors who put a good name in the world map.

But we are careful not to name our public utilities like stadiums and roads and schools after them. In fact, when they are consumed in the rigours of competition, some of our lower compatriots use the cover of managing them to steal from them. All the hard work is theirs in their individual endeavours, but its fruits are ours to claim as a country.

How can we quantify the contribution of our athletes in holding us together in moments of great national stress? How can we measure the size of their example in showing us that different as we may appear to be, we are one people after all? They compete fiercely but take their victories with respect to their defeated opponents. Defeat is never the end of their world, and they accept it with humility and stoicism, remembering that tomorrow, too, is a day and it might be better.

A reading of our history during the competitive era of our politics shows that we have always turned to the winning ways of our world beaters as an antidote to the negative energy from partisan politics.

Without trying to be, our track and field sportsmen and women are the responders who douse the fires of hateful rage burning in our hearts that sometimes turns into violence. At no time in the past has a critical election coincided with a major international competition, one in which Kenya is defending its team title no less.

This is the first but throughout the multi-party era, big competitions have taken place in election years and have served as a rallying call for the country to be as united and as patriotic as the athletes.

In March, 1988, Kenya went through the election that broke the single party era’s backbone. It was the infamous queue voting system in which the shortest queues had a habit of turning out the biggest number of voters in the final count. President Daniel arap Moi’s much touted “open air democracy” turned into brazen daylight robbery. The country plunged into a political convulsion that finally ended in Kanu’s surrender of political power monopoly in 1991.

But as streets became theatres of violent demonstrations, the Seoul Olympics came by in September and people momentarily forgot their political differences.

“Yes, it’s a gold!” The Nation screamed in a banner headline as Paul Ereng won the 800 metres race to open the Olympic gold chase. It appeared as if every Kenyan was in South Korea. The sports pages went to the front and for once the stress of politics was sorted.

Peter Rono (1,500 metres), John Ngugi (5,000 metres) and Julius Kariuki (3,000 metres steeplechase) followed Ereng as Peter Koech (3,000 metres steeplechase) and Douglas Wakiihuri (men’s marathon) took silver and Kipkemboi Kimeli won the 10,000 metres bronze. It wasn’t a good competition for the women but the men ably compensated for that.

And remarkably, Kenya won its first and so far its only Olympic gold medal in boxing through Robert Wangila. With five gold, two silver and one bronze medal, it was the country’s best Olympic outing thus far and people were completely distracted from politics while all this was going on. But only for a while, of course.

We were soon back to our grim ways. The 1992 Olympics in Barcelona held in July and August of that year came with massive expectations following the superlative performance of Seoul. Once again, Kenyans sought to distract themselves from the extreme heat generated by the first elections of Kenya’s second multi-party era, slated for December of that year.

However, only William Tanui (800 metres) and Mathew Birir (3,000 metres steeplechase) could make the gold medal winners’ platform. But the 1-2-3 finish in the men’s steeplechase was and has always been a race to remember. It is the nation’s signature race. Patrick Sang (silver) and William Mutwuol (bronze) completed the treble.

Along with Nixon Kiprotich, Paul Bitok and Richard Chelimo who all won silvers in the 800, 5,000 and 10,000 metres and Samson Kitur who picked up a bronze in the 400 metres, it was a successful Games. But against the memorable performance of Seoul, there were many dropped heads. It is in the nature of people to want more and more.

In short order, we were back in election mode. The polls were held in December. They were violent. One quality weekly magazine, “The Financial Review”, had a macabre cover of a dead man with arrows sticking out of his body. The caption read: “The Killing Fields.” The photograph was taken somewhere in the Rift Valley, the cradle of the nation’s athletics.

Where before people had been screaming their heads out together cheering fellow Kenyans overrunning the world, they now menacingly faced each other as enemies of different ethnicities. The old curse had reared its ugly head again.

The World Athletics Championships of Greece held in August 1997 came a short four months to that year’s General Election. It was the last in which President Moi, who ruled the country for 24 years, was running. It was as fiercely contested as the catastrophic one in 2007 and the current one. It is to our misfortune that each time a serving president is defending his seat, political temperatures reach the stratosphere.

But even then, our superstars still managed to dislodge the politics from the front pages and douse the political fires – however briefly. Images of the steeplechase 1-2-3 between Wilson Boit Kipketer, Moses Kiptanui and Bernard Barmasai took pride of place in the front and back pages and editorials lauded their superlative performances. A foreigner reading the newspapers of that time would have been forgiven for imagining that Kenya was one big, happy family.

WON SILVER

Daniel Komen in the men’s 5,000 metres and Sally Barsosio in the women’s 10,000 metres added to the gold haul while the incoming President of the National Olympic Committee, Paul Tergat, took silver in the 10,000 metres. Tom Nyariki won a bronze in the 5000 metres.

But what resumed soon after the fireworks of the closing ceremonies died down over the Olympic Stadium made you wish that the world athletics championships, or the Olympic Games, could go on and on forever. The election season resumed in earnest. The suspicions, the uncertainties, the forced movement of people and the near collapse of economic activity were back in centre stage.

Unlike some other countries where people hardly notice the heightened political activity, Kenya can indeed be a very tough place to be when a general election is taking place. Many people died in 1997.

Sometime in the 1980s during the periodic demonstrations that finally toppled the Kanu dictatorship, our motoring correspondent brought me a news release on the Coca Cola Rally. I asked him whether he was sure the rally would take place. He threw up his arms and brought them down with a thud and blurted out: “Why can’t they just postpone these demonstrations and allow us to hold the Coca Cola Rally? They can resume after that!”

Everybody minds his own, I thought. But as the years passed and I witnessed deaths and terrible suffering from political activity, my view evolved and I started wishing: we have to mind each other or we all die.

Although it should never be, it is, regrettably, a delicate time and I send my good wishes to our heroes who will be foregoing their right to vote so as to chase glory for us. I thank them for the positive distraction they will provide. My very trustworthy sources within the security establishment have told me not worry.

“There is no need to evacuate yourself in fear,” one of them told me, almost cheekily. They have sworn not to be caught flatfooted as they were in 2007/8. I take their word for it.

And so somebody asked me this week how I am preparing for the elections. Well, I said, I have just re-checked when the subscription to my pay TV service provider expires. Those people can be very mean, I added. They will disconnect you the moment the London action starts. I don’t what to be caught out.

“You are such an optimist,” he said.

I shrugged. Is there a choice?

Enjoy the Worlds! And the elections, too!