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When Moi And Nyachae Fought, Kisii Was Trampled
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- Published on Sunday, 22 July 2007 23:55
Yet political violence precisely was very much in evidence in the run-up to January 12, when a hotly contested parliamentary by-election that resonated nationally was held.
The poll was indeed, marked by unprecedented level of violence reflecting the explosive passions driving the two combatants, or, more precisely, the two forces behind them.
The victor, Mr. James Magara, an opposition man who ran on a Ford Kenya ticket, received news of his triumph in a hospital bed in Tabaka township in Kisii. On election day, he was slashed on the head and the right hand with a machete, while his brother, Titus, was cut on both hands as he tried to shield the candidate from his attackers.
The attackers were alleged to be supporters of his main opponent, the ruling party's candidate, Mr. David Kombo.
At Riosiri polling station, which is Mr. Kombo's main stronghold, the returning officer, Ms Lillian Mogendi, was punched and knocked to the ground in an argument over election documents. Her attacker was alleged to be an Assistant Minister.
Ms Mogendi's assistant, a Mr. Achira Vetalis, was not spared either. His attacker was alleged to be another Kanu activist.
The incidents were sufficiently provocative to prompt a reaction from the normally phlegmatic Electoral Commission, which rarely protests the misdeeds of its powerful patron, Kanu, Kenya's ruling party.
"This incident is shameful and disgraceful. It is demeaning for senior leaders in government to stoop so low as to assault junior election officials, disrupting an election process," complained Mr. Justice William Mbaya, an Electoral Commissioner detailed to oversee the by-election.
The area District Officer, Mr. Hassan Noor, and the police officer in charge, Mr. Burudi Makokha, took no action against the assailants despite promising to do so. Neither, for that matter, have the MP- elect's assailants been apprehended.
This contrasted, glaringly, with the speed at which the security forces reacted when an unruly mob attacked Cabinet Minister Sam Ongeri, the Kanu government's top man in Kisii, last October while ironically attending the funeral of Mr. Magara's predecessor, Enoch Magara, the MP-elect's younger brother.
Many arrests were speedily made and prosecutions pursued over the Ongeri attack. Among those police questioned were two sons of Kanu's most prominent foe in Kisii, Mr. Simeon Nyachae. Mr. Nyachae is a former finance minister and a long-time friend of President Moi, but the two had a bitter parting of ways when the former resigned from the Cabinet in early 1999.
Partisanship by the government's security and administrative organs is nothing new in Kenyan elections. This time too, Kanu supporters accused of perpetrating violence in South Mugirango during the campaign went scotfree.
On the other hand, residents of Kapenguria constituency, several hundred kilometres away in the Rift Valley Province who had committed the "crime" of flashing the "two finger" (multiparty) salute to President Moi when he campaigned there were still being systematically flushed out by police even after the by-election was safely concluded. The "two finger" salute is the standard salute of the opposition Ford- Kenya party.
To be fair, the widespread violence in Mugirango cannot be blamed on the ruling party alone. To their detractors, the Kisii are stereotyped as a temperamental and stubborn people, and the government had taken the precaution of sending a contingent of the paramilitary General Service Unit to the constituency as a show of force, prompting furious protests from the Opposition.
But what really caused tensions to spill over was the perception that the by-election would determine the political fate of Mr. Nyachae as well as that of the ruling party in Kisiiland.
After falling out with Mr. Moi, Mr. Nyachae declared his intention to run for president in the 2002 general election. He remains nominally in Kanu (under suspension) while searching for a "suitable party" under whose aegis to run for high office.
In Kisii and beyond, the Mugirango by-election was seen as the acid- test of whether Mr. Nyachae would be able to unite the Kisii behind him against Kanu's overwhelming resources.
Mr. Nyachae clearly understood the stakes and took no chances. First, he brought the anti-Kanu contestants together and prevailed on the most formidable among them, including a close friend of his called Reuben Oyondi, to step down in favour of Mr. Magara so as to present a more focused challenge to the Kanu candidate.
He also invited the official leader of the opposition in parliament Mr. Mwai Kibaki, as well as Ford Kenya chairman Mr. Michael Wamalwa, to join him in campaigning for Mr. Magara.
Kanu, on its part, rolled out no less than 17 Cabinet ministers to spearhead its campaign. President Moi came over in person to lend a hand. At one point, the campaign was conducted not so much through rallies as through door-to-door campaigns.
Kanu started its campaign on a wrong footing with a presidential decree on Kombo's nomination, which Kanu headquarters promptly ratified. This rubbed local party ranks the wrong way, with several Kanu hopefuls crossing over to the opposition.
