KENYA IN CRISIS

President Kibaki has invited Hon. Odinga of the majority party, ODM to a meeting. The aim of the meeting, to be madiated by President Kuffuor of Ghana and current Chairman of AU, is to find away forward out of the choas and mistrust among Kenyan ethnicities that have been been precipitated by a botched and rigged vote-tallying by the Election Commission of Kenya (aka ECK). Kibaki was declared the winner in the recent election the world believes to have been won by Hon. Odinga.
President Kibaki hopes that Raila and ODM blink and accept to be part of a ruling coalition, or that ODM goes to court where its complaints will not be settled in the lefetime of the new parliament.
ODM will be demanding a re-run of the Presidential Vote; they may also demand an immediate creation of an excutive Prime Minister's post (for Hon. Odinga or any ODM-nominated man or woman). But this would require a constitutional amendment. Neither of these demands will be acceptable to President Kibaki, who knows how sweet the throne is, leave alone the business community who have this phobia about Hon. Odinga's predictable anti-corruption, clean-government stance.
The stalemate has a assumed a 2012 dimension. ODM must watch its steps and keep its eyes on the ball. The public who gave ODM both parliamentary majority and the Presidency (of which it has been robbed) is not dreaming of anything less than an Odinga triumph. This time is Odinga's; 2012 will be Mudavadi's or Ruto's. Luo support for either Ruto or Mudavadi in 2012 demands that the members of the ODM Pentagon must remain united in purpose. To remain politically relevant, ODM must shepherd their elected members in the House to ward off any poaching by Kibaki's PNU.

Kenyans are in for a rough ride because the protagonists have an unhealthy level of mistrust. President Moi is unusually quiet; Hon. Kalonzo of ODM-K is compromised by Presisdent Kibaki; old names in Kenyan poilitics were floored by ODM's pro-change train. The Church had thrown its support behind one candidate before the elections. Who will save Kenya? Maybe members the international community who have refused to recognize Kibaki's win. But for a man who can burry his head in the sand and who beleives that the end justifies the means, global isolation will mean little; and nothiong will stop him.

J. R. Alila