Experienced Mudavadi well equipped to become Kenya’s president

I understand the frustrations of Edwin Sifuna. Unfortunately he doesn’t merit my sympathies.

He is venting regressed aggression against the innocent. Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi hasn’t denied Sifuna the leeway to pave the way for his sponsor to grab power through CORD a.k.a Okoa Kenya secretariat where Sifuna holds brief.

The last time I checked, his troubled boss is at third tier, making time waiting for white smoke than light the fire.

At least Musalia has had the guts – spine – to get out and fend for himself.

The phrase Musalia “has a dogmatic belief that he is predestined to lead Kenya” best describes the “principals” he works for.

It’s a typical transposing the persona you hate in your boss in private. Contrast this with the fact that Musalia knows and believes it is the people of Kenya who should elect their representatives from wards, constituencies, counties and all the way to the presidency.

It is to these constituents and electorates that any Kenyan who seeks leadership must turn to campaign and be subjected to elections.

Musalia has no illusion that anyone is predestined to lead Kenya. Indeed, Kenya is not a monarchy.

You will find no relative of Musalia shadowing him in public office. And he does not expect to be given leadership on a platter. So when he lost his Sabatia parliamentary seat in 2002, he accepted defeat and made history by rejecting a nomination.

He did not go into political irrelevance; he went to into private life and business as an ordinary citizen.

It is confusion for Sifuna to allege in self-contradiction that Musalia has “spent a significant part of his career as a number two to others”. This does not attune to the predisposition of a predestined protégée!

Musalia was appointed Vice-President by President Moi in 2002 and also appointed Deputy Prime Minister in 2008. On both occasions he did not campaign to be made Number Two, which speaks volumes about his place in the political dispensation of the time.

He was VP for under a year and was DPM for about four years. But he has been in politics longer and has held significant dockets, including Finance, Supplies & Marketing, Agriculture, Transport and Communications, and Local Government as minister and not Number Two.

And, if he has been Number Two, the more reason to aspire to be number one.

Unlike Sifuna who begrudges Musalia’s ambition, I would be hard on him if he didn’t go for the top job? Facts can be very stubborn and annoying to some.

Musalia was appointed Minister for Finance after the 1992 General Election. It was a tough time when there was excess liquidity in the country thanks to money that was printed to finance the said election.

It is also a fact that this was the time when Kenya had to grapple with the effects of the multi-billion shilling Goldenberg scandal.

He is credited for stopping the scam. It is a fact Musalia was in charge of cleaning up the country’s financial system. Do you know who came up the Kenya Revenue Authority? Ask Micah Cheserem or read his book.

As a player in 2012, I don’t know what gullibility existed. It bears repeating that there was an MoU signed, sealed and delivered between Musalia on one side and Uhuru Kenyatta on the other.

It bears repeating that MM kept his part of the deal, but Uhuru did not.

It bears repeating that Uhuru’s supporters were manipulated into raising the cudgels against their man for entering a deal with Musalia and scuttled it. That is politics.

So, what followed? Like a man MM took the blow on the chin, rose up, dusted himself, picked up the pieces and joined the presidential race under UDF. That’s what a man does.

Had he been the sulking type, he would have gone to court and both he and Uhuru would have never contested in the elections.

Sifuna broods that Musalia is angling himself as a third force? Which politician doesn’t angle for anything?

However, Musalia has never presented himself as a third force. When he joined the presidential race in 2012, there already were two coalitions in the making and his Amani was tagged the third force not by himself but by the forces operating on the ground and by observers, analysts and opinion writers.

He never declared his coalition of himself as presidential candidate a third force. He has not declared himself a third force now, but he is being touted as such especially by foes. Sifuna says a third force is home to cognitive featherweights. Could Wetang’ula’s position in the pecking order in CORD be symbolic? Musalia does not count himself among them.

It bears a reminder that Musalia Mudavadi, not a triumvirate, has declared “manly” that he will contest in 2017.

He has a new party, ANC. He has the political guts to stand up and be counted, academic and ministerial experience and credentials that qualify him to lead.

Musalia is not a polarising figure by his upbringing, politics, disposition and vision, which is informed by our history.

In 2013 Musalia was packaged as a safe pair of hands. He is, combining as he does diplomacy, dialogue and inclusiveness. So to Sifuna I say, reductive envy isn’t being progressive.

 

The writer is Musalia Mudavadi’s spokesman.