Who was it that said, “Just because you don’t take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics wants nothing to do with you”? Right, everyone.
It is a little too early to begin making political predictions or create talk of politico-ethnic marriages, but there are indications that is exactly the talk some people want advanced.
There was a “swearing in”, and whether that was for real – as the millennials say – or simply a statement depends on your political leaning. What that singular event did that we can all agree on is that it made Raila Odinga a sort of a god in the eyes of his followers, if he wasn’t already, and undid his co-principals. Raila is stronger politically for it. If there was rumour that he will be on the ballot in 2022, it is now more than a rumour, for Kalonzo and Mudavadi lost any chance they had of inheriting Raila’s political constituencies. To understand how disappointing Mudavadi’s no-show was, Cotu Boss Francis Atwoli apologised to a gathering for “leading you to believe that Mudavadi was a man we could trust… I am sorry.”
And while the explanations as to why his three allies did not attend the event, there is a group that thinks it was genius political move that may have been orchestrated by more than Raila himself.
Politics is about survival, and the “swearing-in” was a long play at the next election. According to this group, the deputy president is almost certain he will not have the support he has been promised by his boss when the time comes for him to vie. The group suggests that Uhuru’s new power circle proves he has no intention of including his deputy in his final term as president, for what they call the DP’s greed, and his boss’s smarts.
With a planned onslaught on the Judiciary, the stage, it is said, is being set for a proper constitutional coup, by having a referendum to change the constitution towards the end of the current term, to change to country’s structure from a presidential to a parliamentary system. This, effectively, would turn Uhuru into a Prime Minister, so that he doesn’t have to leave at the end of this term, and therefore lock Ruto out of a race that is unlikely to exist anyway.
Raila’s words in Kericho in January – Ruto needs me to win in 2022 – are beginning to look less like a clever spin to a “hostile crowd”, and more like a snippet of what we may expect.
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