Regional
Why is Kalonzo politically unstable?
If there is a politician in Kenya who
changes statements in a very short time, there is none other than veteran
politician Kalonzo Musyoka. Since Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition party picked Martha Karua as
Raila Odinga’s running mate, Kalonzo lost his bearing, making different
statements that even he himself cannot repeat or remember.
Kalonzo joined Odinga’s
coalition rather late when other prominent politicians like Charity Njiru and
Peter Kenneth were already in. Despite
his late coming, Kalonzo wanted to be automatically named Odinga’s running mate.
Kalonzo blinded himself of the basic rule of nominating a running mate being
mainly tagged to the number of votes he or she can fetch. Odinga settled for
Karua because of the vote rich Mount Kenya region, with close to six million
votes, compared to 1.5 million votes from Kalonzo’s Ukambani region.
Although Kalonzo threatened to walk out of the coalition, saying
“we have agreed to walk our separate ways,” his bid to register as a
presidential candidate hit a dead wall. He did not present the list of his
supporters in the required Microsoft Excel sheet.
He is among the four political party candidates and nine
independents who failed to satisfy the Independent Electoral and Boundaries
Commission’s strict demands of 48,000 supporters, at least 24 counties, proper
presentation of supporters’ names and copies of their national identity cards.
He now has limited options as he can also not legally exit
Azimio. He is walking a tightrope as there are indications that he plans to
rejoin Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition Party, after refusing the chief minister post that
Odinga had offered him.
Before the revelation
of his being locked out of the race by the IEBC, Kalonzo’s supporters and Wiper
aspirants were piling pressure on him to return to Azimio and back Odinga and Karua
as the flag bearers. Political analysts though, question whether by re-joining
Azimio, Kalonzo realizes that he has been missing out in the mass campaigns
around the country and, therefore, just wants to reap from where he has not
sown.
Kalonzo’s behavior did not surprise Kenyans who know the man as a
political opportunist. After the 2007
violent presidential election crisis, Kalonzo who had obtained 9% of the votes,
trailing in third place after Mwai Kibaki and Odinga, accepted to be appointed
Vice-President and Minister of home affairs, even before the crisis was
settled. He simply minded his own take
away, and said that he was, "intensely aware that
the appointment has come at a difficult time when our nation is going through a
painful moment."
Kalonzo used the phrase
“kupita Katikati” meaning passing in between, when many had ruled him out of
the race that was visibly between Kibaki and Odinga. Out of the stalemate, and
political uncertainty, he reaped big earning the post of Vice-President.
In
2010 Kalonzo supported the draft constitution in the campaign for the
referendum but members of the campaign team opposing the draft
constitution claimed that he was secretly opposing the draft leading to his
satirical comparison to a watermelon which is naturally green outside and red
inside.
The
team supporting the draft constitution was represented by color green while the
team opposing the draft constitution was represented by the color red hence the
"green team" and the "red team." His watermelon nickname was because of his
alleged open support for the green team, and secret support for the red team.
Kalonzo either lacks a deep pocket to run a presidential campaign
and therefore, prefers to ride on the back of deep pocketed politicians, or he
is a miser who fears to risk spending huge sums of money with no guarantee that
he will get what he wants, according to analysts. This makes him unstable by
always playing the schemer who waits to join the side that he has already seen
as having the highest chances of winning.
Despite Kalonzo’s political weaknesses and the possibility of
causing controversies for Odinga, among other coalition supporters, Odinga risked
a possible fall out with politicians in Azimio such as Kenneth. The latter has
been loyal all along and was not promised any ministerial portfolio. Although Odinga
went an extra mile to accommodate late comer Kalonzo to his camp, he should as
well be aware that Kalonzo is not an easily trustable team player, despite
promising him to be in charge of the cabinet, should Azimio win.