KAGWANJA: Out of Jubilee ruins could emerge Kenya’s ‘City of God’

Jubilee Party Secretary-General Raphael Tuju addresses a press conference at the party’s headquarters in Pangani, Nairobi, on May 26, 2020. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Jubilee has exposed the perils of a stubborn ethnocentric vision of power – that a post-Covid-19 consensus must end.
  • With the recent changes in Jubilee’s top echelons, national assembly and Senate, Kenyatta is now the one directing the traffic.

Every dark cloud, they say, has a silver lining.

This rings true for the ongoing unravelling in the ruling Jubilee Party. The reordering of Jubilee power is opening a crucial space for a broad national consensus, paving the way for a new social contract to underpin an inclusive and cooperative post-Covid political order.

This change has been a long time coming. Since its creation in 2012, the party has embodied a Manichean struggle between civic citizenship as good and the narrowness of ethnic nationalism as bad.

A post-Covid-19 order must be firmly anchored on civic citizenship, not ethnic citizenship. Consensus around Kenyan nationhood will transform the country into ‘the City of God’, envisioned by the medieval African philosopher, Saint Augustine.

The falling-out in Jubilee is unfolding as a clash of two visions. One is Hobbesian: “war of all against all”, in which Kenyans have, uncannily, constantly sought to destroy each other in an incessant pursuit for power. The other is Lockean: “peace, prosperity and happiness for all”, where all Kenyans are free to produce and transact everywhere as they think fit, within the bounds of the law and reason.

Jubilee rose from the ruins of the 2008 post-election violence. However, in eight long years, it has exposed the perils of a stubborn ethnocentric vision of power – that a post-Covid-19 consensus must end.

CHANGE OF GUARD

Ideologically, Jubilee is a Janus-faced party, reflecting the ethnic politics of its two progenitors. One was the Luo-Kalenjin détente, put together in the run-up to the 2007 election and woven around the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

The other is the former ruling Party of National Unity (PNU) – parodied by its rivals as a “one-against-41” alliance owing largely to its wide support in the Gema (Gikuyu, Embu and Meru) nation.

Within the Kalenjin Rift Valley, “the ODM wave” defeated what British scholar Gabrielle Lynch described as “dynasticism” (African Affairs 2008), enabling William Ruto to claim the mantle of Kalenjin power.

As Lynch argues, the generational change of guard may signify “the failure of dynasticism”. But heirs to Kalenjin power threw their lot behind another dynasty: a scion of the Odinga dynasty.

Jubilee’s forerunners clashed, pushing Kenya to the brink. In his recently launched memoir, My Life, My Purpose: A Tanzanian President Remembers, (2019), former Tanzania President Benjamin Mkapa recalls that extremism by Ruto (ODM) and Martha Karua (PNU) nearly derailed the post-election violence mediation process.

The two were sidestepped, thus enabling Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga to clinch a peace deal and form a Grand Coalition Government. “Kenya has moved on,” Ruto later responded to Mkapa’s memoir.

POLITICAL SEATS

The Luo-Kalenjin détente collapsed. Odinga became too assertive and refused to kowtow to the whims of the new Kalenjin elite.

When the unity government was formed, Odinga became Prime Minister, allowed Musalia Mudavadi to occupy the Deputy Prime Minister’s slot while PNU elevated Uhuru Kenyatta to the second Deputy Premier’s slot.

Contrary to popular expectations, Ruto did not become Prime Minister! Perhaps this is the genesis of the “hustlers-versus-dynasties” mantra, widely touted as a new fault-line in the coming 2022 elections.

Be that as it may, the Rift Valley “hustlers” exited ODM and struck a Gema-Kalenjin deal, propelled by Kwame Nkrumah’s famous dictum: “Seek ye first the political kingdom and all things shall be added unto you.”

On March 4, 2013, Jubilee swept to power as a perfect diarchy – rule by two of what Frantz Fanon described as “ethnic aristocracies”. 

Eight years on, the “hang-together-or-you-will-be-hanged-separately” factor linked to the Kenyan post-election violent cases in the International Criminal Court (ICC) has lost its lustre.

TANGATANGA BORN

Both the 2013 and 2017 elections exposed the perils of an ethnically-exclusive party at the helm of a multiethnic polity under the sway of an elite propelled by a narrow agenda of amassing a campaign war chest.

As the “great conspiracy” theory goes, Jubilee offered a sharp instrument to cut the Kikuyu to size, divide and make their numbers and wealth ineffectual in future politics.

After 2013, Jubilee’s ethnic zealots pursued this strategy with zest. The bulk of experienced Mount Kenya technocrats were pigeonholed as “Kibaki men” and excluded from government.

Key advisers to President Kenyatta were vilified and edged out of power. Gema leaders in strategic dockets, like agriculture, were co-opted, and the region’s agenda derailed.

Jubilee’s night of the long knives – almost echoing the treacherous massacre of the Brown shirts on Adolf Hitler’s orders in 1934 – came in April 2017. 

After flawed official party nominations on April 21, the Deputy President “took over preparations of fresh Jubilee primaries at the party’s headquarters in consultation with IEBC”.

In Mount Kenya region, experienced leaders “lost” to lumpens, ruffians and greenhorns. The Tangatanga political juggernaut was born.

UHURU'S WISDOM

Its members took strategic leadership slots in the party and in Parliament. It drummed up support for Ruto’s 2022 election while creating the impression of a “crumbling” and “good-for-nothing” presidency, thus pushing Uhuru to an early lame-duck phase.

Equipped with the “dynasty-versus-hustler” and “Ruto-versus-Raila” narratives, Tangatanga warriors drew Kikuyu musicians, social media and grassroots activists into their campaigns. Despondency and poison seeped deep into the grassroots.

Ruto never adopted the Moi-era strategy of sponsoring lobbies such as YK92 as campaign vehicles. His own campaign put him on a collision course with his party boss.

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” Kenyatta seems to have imbibed Sun Tzu’s wisdom.

After 2017, President Kenyatta has moved stealthily to assert his authority in the party and government. He unveiled “the four pillars” of his administration and his legacy, made key appointments to bolster Kenya’s anti-graft architecture and closed the taps of corruption used by politicians to siphon public resources to amass war chests.

With the recent changes in Jubilee’s top echelons, national assembly and Senate, Kenyatta is now the one directing the traffic. He can now shape a post-Covid Kenya based on an all-embracing government.

Professor Peter Kagwanja is the author of ‘Kenya's Uncertain Democracy: The Electoral Crisis of 2008’ (Routledge, London, April 2010).