Divide and rule card will not work in Mt Kenya this time

When American Comedian, actor and singer Julius Henry Marx alias ‘Groucho’ described politics as “the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies”, he could very well have visualised the Kenyan state of affairs.

Ours is an easily predictable, endless electioneering cycle of campaigns centered on the age-old political tactic of divide and rule to subdue dissenting and at times realistic voices.

This is the very tactic that has been deployed to subdue one of the country’s arguably most formidable political bloc – the Mount Kenya region – and I dare say this scheme will come crumbling like a wobbly house of cards!

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Not too long ago, a narrative originated from leaders of Embu, Tharaka and Meru origin, that Mt Kenya East – comprising the counties of the former Eastern Province – had instituted divorce proceedings against their Central Kenya counterparts of Kirinyaga, Nyeri, Murang’a and Kiambu counties.

This was swiftly followed by a declaration purportedly supported by some 48 MPs allegedly dumping Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua for Interior CS Kithure Kindiki, even though the said number was far less than those who were physically present at the haphazardly arranged press conference.

This is not a new scheme. In fact, it is just as repetitive as every election cycle we have had since the onset of multi-party politics in 1992 when President Daniel arap Moi’s strategists successfully engineered fractures within the formerly united and formidable Kenyan opposition; with devastating results specifically on the vote-rich Mount Kenya region.

Post-1992, the Mt Kenya region has been on a gradual self-realisation journey to political maturity and it is very unlikely that the divide and rule tactic would carry the day again in the mountain.

With lessons from 1992 – when the Forum for restoration of Democracy (FORD) contested the Presidency separately against Democratic Party (DP)’s Mwai Kibaki – the region swiftly sought cover under one political umbrella with Kibaki as the regional captain in the 1997 polls.

Kibaki came second in the presidential contest against Moi, thus strongly merited as of the country’s likeliest successor to the longest serving President during the subsequent 2002 Polls.

There were strong indications that the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition (Narc) would not have coalesced behind Kibaki in the 2002 contest had he come to the negotiating table with a divided Mt Kenya Political base.

The lessons from the folly of the 1992 division on the mountain continued to inform the Mt Kenya voting pattern in the subsequent 2007, 2013, 2017 and in 2022 when the region affirmed its political maturity by overwhelmingly rallying behind the candidature of William Ruto who had served as President Uhuru Kenyatta’s deputy for two terms.

The dynamics of the 2022 elections actually help to better predict why this latest divide and rule scheme of the mountain will come crumbling, and why any of the Mt Kenya leaders eying political survival must change tact.

Until 2022, when Mt Kenya rejected President Uhuru Kenyatta’s endorsement of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga for the presidency, no other region in the history of Kenyan politics had ever defied their political Kingpin’s direction on the top seat.

In fact, as I earlier indicated, this was the climax of the Mt Kenya political maturity when the voters not only defied their kingpin but for the first time also voted for a presidential candidate who did not hail from the region. 

To think that the voters in the region would make a backward match to the 1992 trap of divide and rule is akin to fasting, hoping for Mt Kenya to liquefy back to the molten lava and percolate down to the core of the earth from where it was thrust out in a volcano millions of years ago!

I wish to borrow some wisdom from Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua – he of ‘kuskiza ground’ (listening to the ground) fame: Mt Kenya leaders need to smell the coffee and seriously listen to the voice of the ordinary voter.

The current Mt Kenya voter is a more enlightened citizen, who holds the political leadership to a higher degree of accountability and demands more service delivery from the establishment.

The ongoing talk of Mt Kenya East verses Central Kenya is an ill-informed, time wastage political bickering with no expected positive end-result for Wanjiku, other than the self-aggrandisement of the politicians and their masters.

In the past two years, Gachagua has spearheaded the broader campaign for reforms in the tea, coffee and dairy sectors, which are integral livelihoods to Mt Kenya residents.

His campaign has been centred on the economic empowerment of the people; which I dare say is yet another great initiative to further politically liberate the ordinary voter from political manipulation.

To think that the obviously sponsored campaign for division will overshadow genuine efforts for economic empowerment of the people is to be politically delusional.

The Mt Kenya region has one of the highest numbers of elected leaders going home at every election cycle. The ordinary voter demands more accountability and development, not a competition of who has more visibility on the media or who is louder on none issues.

There are so many unresolved issues that demand more attention from our leaders such as the school fires that continue dimming dreams, the high cost of living and stalled agricultural reforms and a million other challenges.

Can we hear more solutions on these problems from our leaders before they tell which region is divorcing with which bloc?