The Boldest Move in President Kibaki’s Long Illustrious Fence-Sitting Political Career: What The Press Missed

The Kenyan press is referring to the Wednesday sacking of the entire cabinet by President Kibaki as the President’s boldest move ever in his long political career.

Then there are all sorts of analysis about what he is bound to do next. Most of it seems to be ignorant of the following facts:

# President Kibaki is still in the heady 70s when he was in the Kenyatta cabinet and is yet to wake up to the new political realities in Kenya. Moi seems to have been faster at reacting and re-engineering himself. Every day the former President’s political skills become more evident as the blundering Kibaki regime makes mistake after mistake. Moi despite the problems he sunk Kenyans into (record corruption, looting of public funds etc. is making the African comeback of the century as far as his image is concerned). This should not be happening. Moi said the draft constitution was “not good” voters responded on Monday. Next he may name the next President of Kenya and this time, Kenyan voters may just respond and heed the mzee’s advice.

# President Kibaki has not been governing like he expects to seek re-election. Monday’s vote more than anything else was a vote against the President. So does he make things better by sacking the entire cabinet? In my opinion this is the wrong move. He has attracted attention to himself at a time when the Orange team is riding high. In other words he has gotten rid of all other possible fall guys and left his neck as the only one on the line. His advisors’ seem to have set him up for yet another showdown that he is unlikely to win.

# The last time the entire opposition united against the KANU regime, they succeeded. This time the entire opposition has united against a President with no strong party support of his own in the grassroots. You predict what is bound to happen.

# Is the Orange coalition ready for a snap general election? Maybe we should ask that question in another way. Is President Kibaki ready to face voters in a snap General election? In my opinion neither of the parties is. Orange is riding high but will crumble the minute they have to choose a single Presidential candidate. It will be hard to agree, especially with the bitter memories of the failed Kibaki memorandum of understanding still so fresh in the mind. Going into a snap election the banana group will have no such problems, however the public mood (at least amongst 3.5 million valuable votes) at the moment is such that they would really need a big excuse to change their minds and vote banana or Kibaki.

# What President Kibaki needs to understand is that perception is more important than the truth. He also needs somebody to sell his substantial achievements so far. Top of the list is an economy that is rebounding and recovering admirably (when was the last time Kenya came anywhere near 6% GDP growth?). Second the President has pushed forward a more equitable distribution of resources countrywide through the Constituency Development Fund that will have a very positive impact on the country for years to come. Thirdly and top of my personal list is the free primary education program. At the moment the best salesperson close to the President is Lucy Kibaki, but she’s very limited by virtue of her position as the President’s wife.

Moi had the Kamothos and the Shariff Nassir’s who did a marvelous job selling the achievements of Kanu and the Robert Ouko’s abroad. Who does Kibaki have? I don’t see anybody capable of selling anything to their own wives, let alone the Kenyan public, anywhere near the President. Maybe Raphael Tuju?

Actually if truth be told, this is just not the President’s style. He’d have done better as a politician in the UK… maybe.