News Analysis by Leo Odera Omolo In Kericho Town.
THERE is a strong feeling and beliefs that members of the Kalenjin community could be locked out of the next government unless their political leadership take a bold step and stop the bad habit of hopping from parties.
The inconsistency on the part of some MPS has made the Kalenjin region the cheapest vote hunting ground for deceitful politicians from other region.
These political tourists have made the Kalenjin region their easiest target of political manipulation and found the Kalenjin MPs the easies group for flirting with and luring out of their party into other parties, making the most vulnerable party hoppers in this country.
Fears persist among the level minded Kalenjin politicians that lack of exposure to political intrigues, which could easily make the community lose out to at the next general election and find it locked out of the next government.
Owing to these manipulations and maneuvers, the Kalenjin leaders have lost out to wealthy politicians from other regions who have been spending millions in confusing the Kalenjin MPs into hopping from one party to the other weakening their status and stand in the national politics. The community has not yet to build one strong party which they can call their own, and use as a popular vehicle to propel one of their own to the presidency.
The manipulation and maneuvers have hurt members of the Kipsigis sub-tribe more than any other Kalenjin sub-tribes. This particular community, which is arguably, the most populous and votes rich, has failed to produce one of their own sons with the national political outlook for possible for future leadership at the national level, thereby reducing the otherwise strongest community to playing only the third fiddles and supportive role for others.
The Kipsigis is so divided to an extent the community cannot rally behind one of their own sons and propel him to become a national political leader with the national appeal.
During the rein of the retired President Daniel Arap Moi,the former head of state was being blamed for having perfected in the art of using individual politicians within the Kipsigis community and dump them.
The practice is still the same ten years down the line ever since Moi was voted out of power in 2002. This community with the highest number of intellectuals and whose members are relatively much wealthier in comparison with the Kalenjins people from other regions are still vulnerable to political manipulation and easy prey for politics of deceits by outsiders have penetrated deep into Kipsigis land.
In 2007 members of the Kipsigis community voted for ODM leader Raila Odinga on man-to-man, but within only three months, especially soon after the formation of the coalition government of PNU/ODM, some MPs from the ODM side who failed to secure cabinet posts jumped the party bandwagons, shouting the loudest about the unfair distribution of ministerial slots by Raila Odinga, who they claimed to have favored their cousins from the Nandi community of the North Rift.
At the material time, the coalition government collectively arrived at a decision to eject the legal squatters out of the Mau Forest, one o the most important water towers in the country. The ODM Raila Odinga was assigned with the task of implementing this import government policy in carrying out the eviction for the thousands of illegal squatters and the rehabilitation of the Mau Forest and to ensure its fresh reforestation.
Some of the MPs, especially those from the Kipsigis community were later discovered to give benefited in the illegal settlement in The Mau Forest, and as such were fighting hard to maintain status quo. On of the most outspoken MP, it was later established had bought some of the illegal squatter’s ancestral land back in the Kipsigis reserve land with the promise to reward those whose land he had bought and converted to his own land plot were among the squatters ordered by the government out of the forest land.
This particular MP knew the eviction would expose his tricks, started to mobilize his colleagues inside and out of parliament into well orchestrated political campaign based on heap of lies against the Prime Minister whom they unfairly blamed for the problems facing their people. They used Raila Odinga as scapegoat for the simple purpose of gaining political cheap mileage.
And this how anti-Raila elements within the coalition gained free entry into ODM hierarchy and started buying out MPs whose lust for money made them easy prey to politicians outside Kipsigis region.
Back at home the residents of the two counties whose inhabitants re mainly the Kipsigis, it has been established beyond any reasonable doubt that the carrying with them the tug of “MPs for Sale”.This tug has come about owing to their inconsistency and hoping from one political party to the other and shifting allegiances through the formation of numerous amorphous tribal political alliances with no direct benefit to the electorate.
The recent mass exodus of Kalenjin MPs is clear testimony to the alleged politics of buyout.It does not come on free will, but as the result of lust for money, and general fears among the Kipsigis people is that the Kalenjin people in genera and the Kipsigis community in particular might find themselves locked out of the next government and perhaps consigned alliances after the other with consequences of failing to identify the political party with the better prospect of winning the next general election and forming the next government.
The Kalenjin community ha always been part of the government of the day ever since the country attained its political independence in 1963.
As the situation stands today, the Kalenjin people have no party of their own nor any political party they can claim to represent the community interests at heart and which is capable of successfully appealing to the neighboring communities cannot trust them as reliable political partners due to their temperamental nature of hopping from party to party one after the other. And because of inconsistencies of their leaders from other communities don’t trust them.
The strong willed Kalenjin nationalists of the struggle for political liberation of Kenya like the late Taitta Arap Toweett, William Murgor, Daniel T.Moi, John Majorie Seroney had stood steadfastly firm alongside their colleagues from other communities and joined hands in giving the colonialist the sleepless nights eventually forced them out of the country in 1963.
They turned down the temptation by the white supremacists and racists who made vain attempt; to have them bribed cheaply, though the white settlers had millions readily for bribery purposes so that independence could be delayed for longer period time.
This is in big contrast to the current crops of Kenyan MPs who are said to be readily corruptible with as little money as Kshs 20,000 as per the recent claims made publicly by the Ikolomani MP Dr Bonny Khalwale against accusing his colleagues.
Several political parties are on the ground in the Kalenjin region hunting for the community votes. Prominent among them is the URP, which is led by the Eldoret Mp William Ruto, KANU LED BY Gideon Moi, TNA led by Uhuru Kenyatta,UDF led by Musalkia Mudavadi, Wipper Orange Demoratic led by Nicholas Kiprono Biwott,UDM led by Lt. Gen {rtd} John Arap Koech, and the ODM led by the Prime Minster Raila Odinga.
In the South Rift region o the expansive Rift Valley Province, the Kipsigis sub-tribes is well spread in several Counties apart from their home region of Kericho and Bomet. Members of this community lives in part of Narok, Nakuru and Baringo Counties.
There has been kind of cut-throat competition between the URP, ODM, UDM and KANU in the South Rift. And the concepts and misconception that William Ruto’s URP is the party of choice in this region bears a false impression.
This region is still widely open for all the political parties mentioned above. though URP had briefly enjoyed the euphoria that came bout with its formation. But this support has since been fizzled out following its recently flawed and poorly organized grass root elections, which saw it practices the old and outmoded KANU system and tactics of prearranged hand-picking of leaders a the Counties, district and constituencies levels. Instead of putting the party’s structures, the URP leadership is reportedly spending millions funding the defection of MPs and their followers from ODM into its rank and file, some of the defectors known to be dong so for the simple purpose of having access to the party’s coffers for financial gains and political expediency.
Indications are that of the Kipsigis MP who have ditched ODM And jumped into URP bandwagon might not see the inside of the next Parliament gain after the March 4, 2013.
They will be beaten by aspirants from UDM, ODM, KANU AND NVP.But TNA will come empty handed in the South Rift region because the Kipsigis people have no love lost for the Kenya that as whom they blamed for their tribulation and biased distribution o land in the Rift Valley, which has cause the community a lot of strains fighting numerous skirmishes and land clashes ever since 1990s.
The electorate in the South Rift have detected the URP leadership as lacking the political agenda for implementing reforms and improving the standard of living among Kenyans, part from William Ruto’s declared ,but now notorious policy of fighting and preventing the Prime Minister Raila Odinga from becoming the next president of Kenya.
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