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All Set for Nyachae Take-Over
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 22 July 2007 22:45
The strongest sign that the leading Kanu rebel - who has hitherto kept his party of choice a closely guarded secret - was settling for FP came on Saturday when four MPs closely allied to him announced they would stand on the party's ticket in the 2002 General Election.
Jimmy Angwenyi (Kitutu Chache) and Zebedeo Opore (Bonchare) and Ford-Kenya MPs Henry Obwocha (West Mugirango) and Omingo Magara (South Mugirango) asked the Abagusii people to support FP because they expected Mr Nyachae to run through it.
Mr Nyachae himself was present at the two functions - a funeral and a fund-raising meeting - where the statements were made. But he remained non-committal, although he affirmed he would vie for the presidency on an Opposition ticket.
Move by Nyachae's mother
The first signs of this emerged in mid-June, when Mr Nyachae's mother, Mama Pauline Bosibori, and a number of his close political associates announced their defection from the ruling party to FP and opened a branch office at Kisii town.
Mama Bosibori and former assistant ministers Reuben Oyondi, Stephen Manoti and Hezron Manduku also launched an aggressive membership drive. They have since been busy opening local offices.
Across the border, in Bomet District, Mr Nyachae's firm ally and fellow Kanu rebel, former cabinet minister Kipkalya Kones, has been doing the same. He achieved a spectacular feat at the recent by-elections when he masterminded FP's humiliation of Kanu for the Gelegele civic seat.
With that, Mr Kones, the Bomet MP, and fellow rebel Antony Kimetto, the Sotik MP, felt confident enough to proclaim that they would be moving to FP. They also said they were set to nullify Kanu's influence among the Kipsigis.
But it is Mr Nyachae's intentions that really matter. He is keeping his cards close to his chest. Contacted by the Daily Nation, FP's Kimani wa Nyoike remained non-commital, saying only that the party was set for a dramatic resurgence. Currently, FP has only three legislators.
Twenty MPs awaited
Contacted by the Daily Nation, FP's Kimani wa Nyoike remained non-commital. He declined to confirm or deny that FP was set to nominate Mr Nyachae as its presidential candidate. He also would not comment on whether Mr Nyachae was joining the party. However, he said that nearly 20 Kanu MPs and various opposition outfits had already committed themselves to joining FP.
The otherwise dormant party also seems to have stumbled on a windfall as it gears up for the election campaigns. Mr wa Nyoike and other officials have suddenly become extremely busy in the past few weeks, crisscrossing the country opening new party branches and launching recruitment drives.
These activities are obviously spurred by a generous infusion of financial and manpower resources.
The Nation, meanwhile, has established that, contrary to popular belief that Mr Nyachae's political pointmen enlisted with FP only a few weeks ago, the deal was actually struck at the end of last year. And, to secure his interests, Mr Nyachae had insisted that some of his key lieutenants must come to the FP executive committee.
In changes registered at the registrar of societies in January, Mr Anode assumed the national vice-chairmanship, Mr wa Nyoike moving up from secretary-general to the vacant post of chairman.
Other Nyachae representatives given slots in the executive were the former National Development Party secretary-general, Dr Charles Maranga, who replaced Mr wa Nyoike as secretary-general but resigned later to take up a seat on the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission; and Kisii politician Potus Nyanserar, who got the post of assistant treasurer.
Dr Manduku, a former MP for Nyaribari Masaba and arch-foe of Cabinet minister Sam Ongeri - the Kisii Kanu branch chairman - got a slot on the FP executive as party secretary for health.
Mr Kones also placed a nominee of his, a Mr Waitage, as assistant organising secretary in the national executive.
Mr Nyachae, sources indicate, has been busy putting together the machinery required to mount an effective presidential campaign. This will includes establishing a strong grassroots presence.
But why opt for a party that, in reality, is just a shell? Mr Nyachae had the option of registering a new party, but was not about to take a step that would place him at the mercy of President Moi's whims.
When Mr Paul Muite, Dr Richard Leakey and others launched Safina in 1995, they were kept cooling their heels until close to 1997 when the party was registered, too late to make much of an impact.
More recently, when Kanu rebel MPs, led by Mr Cyrus Jirongo and Mr Kipruto arap Kirwa, launched the United Democratic Movement, their application for registration was put on ice for more than an year before the registrar of societies rejected it on the grounds that registration would be a threat to peace and order.
The other option was to take over an existing party. Mr Nyachae had a well-publicised tryst with the Mombasa-based Shirikisho Party, which had gone as far as declaring him its presidential candidate, until wrangles within the party forced him to look elsewhere.
There were also once widespread reports that Mr Nyachae was negotiating to take over Mr Mathews Okwanda's Labour Party Democracy, an outfit that seems to be perpetually on sale. The move eventually floundered. Other parties thought to have caught, or sought, Mr Nyachae's attention include Mr Kennedy Kiliku's Labour Party of Kenya and Mr Onesmus Musyoka Mbali's Kenya National Congress, the latter also on "sale" all the time.
Another option for Mr Nyachae was to join one of the existing major parties. Initially there was talk that he had held discussions with the DP and Ford-Kenya (FK) which were both willing to have him on board, but nothing came of it. In any case, it was unlikely that he would fit seamlessly into well-established parties with their own structures, office bearers and political aims.
Mr Kibaki was already virtually confirmed as the DP presidential candidate and, likewise, FK's Michael Wamalwa. To join either would have meant either agreeing to play second fiddle or being allowed to push its leader aside. That was not going to happen and the only option was his own party.
So far, he seems to be settling for a lone-ranger strategy after pulling out of highly-publicised contacts with Mr Kibaki, Mr Wamalwa and Mrs Charity Ngilu, lately of the SDP, aimed at fielding a united opposition.
Mr Nyachae, in fact, dismissed the unity bid as but a short-sighted gimmick involving only negotiations towards a sharing of the spoils.
Breakfast sessions
But evidence indicates that, directly and through proxy, he was very much involved in the initial contacts and had even volunteered to pick up the tab for the first of the breakfast sessions when the initiative was made public; only to skip it.
Sources say Mr Nyachae eventually decided that it was better to pull out at the early stages than mislead opposition supporters by making promises - on a single opposition presidential candidate - that were bound to be broken.
The other factor is that the negotiations were centring on a power-sharing arrangement, which could come by creating additional offices, such as the premiership, yet no such offices existed and were unlikely to have been formed by election time.
Mr Nyachae, in any case, was negotiating from a disadvantaged position in that he had no infrastructure in place, such as a political party. There is also the fact that, while Mr Kibaki, Mr Wamalwa and Mrs Ngilu each boasted a strong ethnic constituency, Mr Nyachae could bring to the table only the presumed command of the Kisii vote, a claim that had not yet been tested at any election.
Demographic make-up
But, even if, as predicted, Mr Nyachae comes to overwhelmingly dominate the Kisii vote, that alone might be insignificant, given the country's demographic make-up. Thus his game-plan would be to establish himself as a presidential aspirant with a national outlook and national support base.
At the end of it all, however, ethnic realities must come into play. Mr Nyachae's strategists are convinced that he will assemble a formidable national network, bringing in disaffected Kanu leaders and ethnic groups.
In this regard, old and emerging fallouts in Kanu over the Moi Succession, and more recently the proposed merger with the NDP, are being waited on to provide a ready-made base.
Mr Nyachae was one of the key forces in the so-called "Kanu A" faction opposed to the "Kanu B" grouping around the Vice-President and Minister for Home Affairs, Prof George Saitoti.
Until he left the Cabinet in a pique on being stripped of the Finance Ministry, he was believed to have assembled a formidable force ready to vie for control of the key posts at the Kanu national executive if party polls were called.
