I usually laugh when readers of this blog fall short of swearing on their dead relatives that such and such a candidate has NO dictatorial tendencies while another one has. It is funny because not a single presidential candidate can claim to be immune to being a dictator once they are safely inside State House.
Kenyans have very short memories and many have forgotten the way one Emilio Mwai Kibaki humbly came hat in hand in 2002 knocking on our doors and begging us to cast our votes for him. As soon as the man was inside State House, he did not even return to thank us for voting for him but ignored us and went on with his business. When oush came to shove he would send emissaries to tell us this and that thing. Predictably, now that elections are around the corner all manner of goodies (Teachers salary hike etc.) are being released so that we forget the horror and nightmare of the last 5 years and cast our vote once again for Mwai Kibaki.
Admittedly the problem has more to do with the piece of paper we call our constitution which gives the President of the republic of Kenya colossal powers. The president in Kenya is as powerful as the Kings of old. Usually a king in those days owned everything including their subjects and his word was law.
In recent years efforts have been made to clip those powers but there has been so much grey area conveniently left by some of these amendments that to be honest very little has changed.
So what do you expect when any of the self-seeking guys standing for president has such power at their disposal? My bet is that many of them (if not all of them) will do exactly what Emilio did.
The whole lot are Idi Amin under the current situation. Period.
Thanks Chris for introducing an objective twist to this otherwise petty yet gravious issue. That our problems starts and ends with our constitutition is both true and false. The spirit of our constitution is very good and not any significantly different from other African states that were colonized and bequethed these documents in the 1950s and 60s.
ReplyDeleteThe true problem lies with our so-called leaders how over the year have mutilated this constitution for polical expediency. They selectively eploit the loopholes to advance personal aggrandisement at the expense of other Kenyans and the product is a country of two tribes - wenyeinchi and wanainchi.
And we seem not to have learnt our lessons the hard way. We are roped in in these evil schemes by unwittingly jumping to the defense and support of these merchants of latent death.
Mudavadi may have unknowingly let the cat out of the bag that all we are seeing from ODM (and even Naka-K) are mere motions without movements. The guy's Idi Amin's outburst betrayed his thinly veiled premise that the present tattered constitution is here to stay.
Our attitude to go vile and bile in support of one of own will be our principal undoing as it amounts to watering the rot prevailing rot. With due resppect goats never discerned any melody from a guitar, or can they? Let the bile flow.
'Chris','Taabu' and the rest of the Raila-maniacs,
ReplyDeleteYou are increasingly seeing the light. 3 good points (and counting) since I started reading your blog.But you need to be consistent. At one point you are vehemently declaring that Mudavadi was not referring to Raila, then watching the direction the wind is blowing, and jumping back and in the same breath declaring everybody politician an Idi Amin,. You do admit, don't you, that everybody in government and the opposition was in KANU all along? Except Ngilu and the perhaps some entrants in 02.
As I've said before, going on rants, raves and pity-parties never won any vote. Not even a smear campaign will dissuade at least me, if I have a chance, from voting for my preferred candidate.
You must show us what Raila has done with the numerous opportunities he's had as cabinet minister (other than demolish his poor constituents shanty houses, making them homeless in the name of getting back public land.And 'forcing' Coast people what they've called home for generations so a Canadian firm can have mining rights on their land) in KANU and NARC.
And, oh, we have not forgotten,remember, that great move to restore democracy in Kenya in 82!
I wonder what "horror and nightmare of the last 5 years under Kibaki" you are referring to. I guess people see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. God bless democracy!!! Cme december kenyans will elect who they want.
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