Political News By Leo Odera Omolo In Kericho Town.

CONTRARY to popular believes and perception that the Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga’s influence and popularity among the Kalenjin community has diminished and drastically dwindled in the recent past “Agwambo” is still the darling of the majority of ordinary Kalenjin people.

Those nursing this school of thought were proved wrong last weekend. This was during a tension parked consultative forum between the delegates from the eight parliamentary constituencies that forms the two counties of Kericho and Bomet who W came face to face encounter with Raila at a very crucial forum over the last weekend.

It turned out to be a true display of Raila’s masterly political acumen and dynamism, which took everyone in attendance by surprise. Those whom came to the meeting armed with tough questions about the controversial Mau Forest Complex had to change tact and abandon pre-conceived questions.

In fact what the Prime Minister need to do is to frequent the region and come close to the people. This will make his work much easier because he is still a power to reckon with in the Kipsigis land. Regular visit to the South Rift by the ODM party leader can defuse the entire falsified allegation against him by the rebellious MPs from the region.

It is equally important for “Agwambo” to make an overture of reconciling himself with his ester while political friend turned enemy William Ruto, but not through coercion in manner which can makes the Prime Minister a hostage of the Kalenjin MPs. After all Raila policy of making direct contact with the electorate on the ground is gaining ground and paying dividend.

The Orange Democratic Movement {ODM} party needs only to change its tactical approach by putting the right men and women on the ground. This required individual personalities that are articulate enough for damage repair work.

Already the party is enjoying the support and backing of the former Belgut MP Charles Kirui a highly respected politician among the Kipsigis people. It is also enjoying the support of the United Democratic Movement’s leader Lt Gen {rtd} John Arap Koech and the party’s patron Mzee Nathaniel Chebellion,a former two time Konoin MP.

ODM must shift from the use of cheap and unreliable political hirelings and power brokers with no grass root support of the population in the rural areas. It must overhaul its electoral and nomination system, which in the past had encouraged the locking out the popular aspirants and replaced them with power brokers and self-seekers. At the same time the ODM it must discourage the politics of handouts

The forum discussed wide ranging issues including the contentious Mau Forest, the distribution of cabinet positions in the grand coalition government. A section of the Kalenjin MPs felt they were short-changed.

The cheap idea which the rebellious Kalenjin MPs had tried to sell to the electorate is that in the year 2007 the Kipsigis community gave Raila close to 1.3 million votes in the presidential election, while their cousins the Nandis gave only 230,000 votes, but were rewarded with three cabinet positions. In this elementary arithmetic, the Kipsigis MPs were also counting on William Ruto, Dr Sally Kosgei and Henry Kosgei are all members of the minority Nandi sub-clan of the larger Kalenjin ethnic groups, whereas the majority KLi0sigis were only given one cabinet slot that of the former Road Minister the late Kipkalia Kones, who was later replaced by Franklin Bett, and the late Lorna Laboso who was made an Assistant Minister for Home Affairs. She was later replaced by Mrs Beatrice Kones and Charles Keter who was appointed Energy Assistant Minister, but recently sacked and replaced by the youthful Magerer Lang”at the Kipkellion MP.

But political analysts countered immediately countered these claims by telling the rebellious MPs that in the cabinet appointment Raila had the duty of considering political seniority in the party hierarchy. William Ruto is the deputy party leader while Henry Kosgey is the ODM national chairman therefore there was no way Raila could have relegated them to junior positions in the coalition. Their appointment was so crucial, though they belonged to the Nandi community. Similar argument was also the major source of the fallout between Raila and the former South Mugirango MP Omingo Magara.The latter felt that because he was the national treasurer of the ODM party and a member of the Pentagon, he was the one who deserved the cabinet appointment and not Chris Mogere Obure the Minister for Roads who had just came out of KANU. Magara eventually became the loser.. and he is no longer Mheshimwa.

But it took many people by surprise when the same Ruto was later to become a political turn-coat and started inviting the Kalenjin MPs against his chairman. Ruto at first thought that due to the numerical Kalenjin votes that Raila had received at the 2007 general election he would be a hostage and taken for ransom. For this “Agwambo” flatly refused to be a push-over. The entire argument lacked the credence and become illogic when it become a cheap song in the lips of the Kalenjin MPs portraying them as people who are not cohesive and difficult to work with.

It is equally important and could serve as an advance warning to those clamoring to form future political alliance with the likes of William Ruto to know better about the persons they are forming an alliance with, and ask questions whether such alliances would last and be best on mutual respect or on cheap empty political slogans. In other word by launching anti-Raila campaign in the expansive Rift Valley, Ruto has exposed himself to be an unreliable political partner, something which should serve as a deterrent advanced warning to those who might be tempted to form an alliance with him in the next general election.

But the Kalenjin MPs do forget that in the coal9tion government in which the ODM is one of the principal partners, the party had only a half a loaf and not full bread, and Raila had to look for ways how to struck the regional balance when he submitted the names of his party’s appointees to the cabinet. Even if it was the case of the winner takes all, not all the Kalenjin MPs should have been absorbed to the cabinet.

The weekend meting in Kericho proved that Raila is still a power to reckon with and popular leader among the members of the Kipsigis community. But the ODM, the Prime Minister’s party need to put the reliable and trustworthy people on the ground as its torch-bears and not ordinary political hirelings and power-brokers.

For the party to regain its old lost glory in Kipsigis land, it has to work out strategies that can endear it to the people, and not to rely on treasury hunters. It must shift its attentiu9n from those who want to hold the party and its leadership hostage on every petty issue, and work with people with proven political credibility within their community. ODM need to recruit honest and straight forward. But not a bunch of money-maniacs

In the 2007 general election, a section of Kalenji leadership appear to have taken the OIDM leadership by way of ensuring that only weak and not upright persons won parliamentary seats. As such, a plan was hatched and rolled out by Ruto and his supporter that ensure that high profile candidates in the region were locked out and replaced with weak and poor aspirants. This is the same style and fashion used in the region by the retired President Daniel Arap Moi in whose time any emerging Kipsigis political personality was destroyed, finished and reduced to a beggar.

The Kipsigis community was marginalized despite of its numerical voting strength.Any emerging leader from the community was immediatey destroyed and consigned to a political limbo. The man Moi used to perfect this kind of political games was the late Isaac Kipkoriri Salat, the semi-educated one eyed politician from Bomet. After Salat,Ayub Chepkwony took over the job of power broker and was also assigned the role of destroying an dismantling any Kipsigis individual personality with national political outlook on he ground. Chepkwony and Moi are related because they married from one family.

William Ruto being a disciple of Moi had learnt these tactics, which he used perfectly in the ,st general election byu ensuring that the likes of Justice Kemei {Belgut},Gen John Koech {Ainamoi}

In the final analysis, nothing is lost for ‘Agwambo I the South Rift region, and within the Kipsigis community in particular. He only needs to put the right men and women on the ground for the forthcoming general election. All the indications are that the local community would prefer Raila to any of the other possible contenders for the top job on the land.

Ends