2002 Elections
Nyachae is headed for epic battle with Kanu
- Details
- Published on Monday, 23 July 2007 10:09
Things must be surely hot when a supposedly hard fellow like George Anyona is forced to disguise himself in a leso. Yes, a leso! This is what he did as he cowed behind Magara's parents so as to avoid being flushed out and beaten by the rampaging mourners.
Violence in whatever guise does not reflect well on anybody, and those behind the South Mugirango episode are no exception. Rest assured that the government will seek to blame somebody. That person is no doubt going to be Simeon Nyachae, much as he tried to cool down the irate crowd.
If anything, the animosity existing between Nyachae's corner and the ruling establishment will only intensify. A showdown is inevitable when it comes to the issue of who will fill the parliamentary seat vacated by Mr Magara. The by-election is going to be Mr Nyachae's defining moment. Will he prove that he can be viable, less than two years to the main event in 2002?
For the first time, Mr Nyachae will be forced to show his hand. Quite obviously, his interest in the coming by-election will be more than just cursory. It will be intense. There will be extraordinary interest too from far and wide over which candidate he elects to support. The same will apply over the party whose ticket that candidate chooses.
Above all, everybody will want to see the kind of mettle Mr Nyachae is made of as he leads his Kisii troops to battle. Does he have what it takes to fight the Kanu establishment? Since his departure from government, Mr Nyachae has been regularly reviving up his supporters with fighting talk against the system, including a recent gem where he cheekily advised the leadership of the importance of being committed to wholesome family values. Yet, when the crunch comes, he is set to encounter a brutal machine unlike any he has encountered in his political career.
Nyachae's main handicap is his lack of a party. His search for one has so far not been fruitful. Early but tentative approaches to the moribund Labour Party of Mathews Okwanda went nowhere. His recent flirtation with Shirikisho turned farcical after a revolving door of forgettable people all claiming to be the little party's spokesmen went on stream with conflicting messages on his suitability.
Conventional wisdom is that the DP with Mr Mwai Kibaki would leave little room for Mr Nyachae to assert his ambitions there. Matters could be a little easier in Ford Kenya, which boasted two MPs in Gusiiland - West Mugirango's Henry Obwocha and the departed Mr Magara. But even here, Mr Nyachae would have to contend with Mr Michael Wamalwa and the party's Bukusu powerbase. The NDP is plainly out of the question. So too is that tiny Kanu clone, the Kenya Social Congress, where Mr Anyona has shown no mood to entertain his once-upon-a-time benefactor.
Mr Nyachae would also find the going complicated if he turned to the SDP. The duo of Prof Anyang Nyong'o and Mr Apollo Njonjo speak an ideological language he is unfamiliar with. There could be scope to cut a deal with Mrs Charity Ngilu, who is also adrift if the reports that she was finally cast off by her party secretariat turn out to be conclusive. Whether the two can play ball is another matter altogether.
At Mr Magara's funeral service in Nairobi, Mr Nyachae expressed his support for the Muungano wa Mageuzi lobby of Mr James Orengo. The two men could be in the same anti-Establishment boat for now, but your guess is good as anybody's whether Mr Nyachae can mesh easily with the Young Turks moulding that movement. Mr Kibaki for one appears not to be greatly enamoured of them, though he has chosen to give them the signal of live and let live.
Mr Nyachae's people have been putting a lot in store over the much-hyped backing he is said to enjoy from Mr Kipkalia Kones and his friends in the Kipsigis world. Mr Nyachae and Mr Kones both have a major axe to grind with President Moi arising from the shabby treatment they got while in the Cabinet. But even assuming Mr Nyachae's supporters are not over-rating their Kipsigis support, the basic question remains whether Mr Kones has the clout to yank the Kipsigis away from the line the rest of the Kalenjin will be pushed to when President Moi so decides. In any case, Mr Kones and his colleagues will also want to see Mr Nyachae have a party they can come to.
The view from Kanu's inner councils, which nobody there bothers to hide any more, is that the Kisii leader is too temperamental for his own good, that he cannot be able to forge alliances or work with anybody outside his immediate orbit. This view is so ingrained that you can easily tell from Kanu's smug posture that they expect him to burn out in no time. The more dismissive types like Mr Julius Sunkuli are already saying he is irrelevant. At this point in time, this verdict may be a bit rash, at least if the reception the Kanu people got at Mr Magara's funeral is anything to go by. Mr Nyachae may have burned his bridges with Kanu, but he has not run out of options yet.
From time to time, Mr Nyachae's name has been mentioned in connection with the United Democratic Movement, the outfit the Kanu rebel duo of Cyrus Jirongo and Kipruto Kirwa have been yearning to launch. The trouble is that the UDM remains unregistered. As long as it remains that way it cannot be of any worth to anybody including Mr Nyachae or Mr Jirongo or Kirwa.
But if it was to get registered - which is not at all unlikely in the countdown to 2002 - the ball game would change sharply. The fact that Mr Nyachae is floating with no party abode, coupled with his big-name cachet, would be sufficiently attractive to those in the UDM to seek to lure him there. Kanu could also calculate that a Nyachae confined to the UDM would be a genie that has been locked up and contained for good. As long as he does not team up with other big guns like Kibaki or Ngilu or Wamalwa, all would be fine with Kanu.
The problem for Mr Nyachae is that he badly needs a bigger field than the rather limited one Gusiiland affords him. This he knows well, as does his enemies and rivals. He is disadvantaged in that he is not like Raila Odinga or Kibaki who all they need to do is snap their fingers and a big ethnic following springs to attention. Worse, unlike Orengo, he does not appear disposed to use mass mobilisation techniques that cut across disparate groups and which even undercut the tribal dinosaurs already on the stage. He seems to prefer dealing the old way: brokering support with those like Mr Kones he thinks speak for their communities.
Word from the Nyachae camp is that a big announcement will come from him in the New Year or thereabouts. This will most likely have to do with the choice of party affiliation he has settled upon. Whether it is an entirely new party or an already existing one remains to be seen.
Previously, he has argued against disclosing his party options on the grounds that he will be exposing his plans to Kanu and thus leaving himself open to sabotage by the ruling party. Time, however, is running out. You need sufficient time to build and popularise a party. You can't go far if you spring a party to the electorate at the last minute.
A final word of caution. The impression Mr Nyachae is giving that he can win power solo is misguided. He is making the same mistake Opposition candidates made in 1992 and 1997. Let him join hands with others. Without unity, they will all perish.
