With Jubilee on deathbed, Nasa abandoned, let’s look elsewhere

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. The Jubilee Party launch in September 2016 heralded a brave and forward-looking evolution on the Kenyan political party scene.

The merger of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s The National Alliance (TNA) and Deputy President William Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) was the first time that two major regional formations dissolved themselves to re-emerge as a united front.

Along with another dozen or so minor parties, the new Jubilee Party was a significant advance from the Jubilee Coalition which had propelled Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto to power in 2013. It boasted a nationwide presence cutting across regional and ethnic boundaries, a clear improvement on the typical Kenyan political outfit often built around an individual.

It also seemed to place Jubilee ahead of the alliances around opposition chieftain Raila Odinga it had defeated in 2013 and a rematch set for 2017 — Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) and National Super Alliance (Nasa), respectively.

Even President Kenyatta’s predecessor, President Mwai Kibaki, had ridden to power twice on outfits that were more of special purpose electoral vehicles.

The first was National Rainbow Coalition (Narc), with which he, in 2002, whitewashed outgoing President Daniel arap Moi’s handpicked flag-bearer for the Kanu ticket, one Uhuru Kenyatta, and consigned the once-formidable Independence party to virtual irrelevance.

The second was Party of National (PNU), which returned President Kibaki to State House in 2007 through a violently contested electoral outcome. Both fell into disuse soon after delivering on their single tasks and are now pale shadows of their former selves.

The new Jubilee was billed as the outfit that, now and in the future, would stand hand and shoulders above the rest. The assumption was that Mr Kenyatta would complete his 10 years in 2022 and pass the baton to Mr Ruto, who also would easily complete his maximum two terms and then hand over in 2032 to whoever had emerged within the party. Then things went wrong.

Jubilee is now riven with divisions that seriously call into question its survival into the next elections. An increasingly bitter civil war pitting a faction loyal to President Kenyatta against a grouping focused on Dr Ruto’s early campaign for the 2022 General Election has split the party down the middle. Many key figures seem ready to bolt a sinking ship, establishing Plan ‘B’ outfits.

Right now, Dr Ruto would be quite foolish not to have an alternative in his back pocket.

President Kenyatta will not be a presidential candidate, but various minions angling to succeed him as the central Kenya kingpin have decided that Jubilee is not the one, and are busy forming new parties or reviving moribund ones. If we are witnessing the death of the Jubilee experiment, that would be a retrogressive step for the growth of democracy.

This is not about a Jubilee sympathiser mourning the implosion within; far from it. It is about a positive development coming to a shuddering halt and Kenya moving backwards to a proliferation of puny political outfits based on ethnic chiefs.

A successful Jubilee threatening to emulate its Kanu ancestor ‘mama na baba’ and dominate power for many years would have forced progressive forces to abandon shaky electoral coalitions and also go for formal mergers.

Cord-Nasa would be a much more potent political formation as one strong national party rather than as a grouping of regional chieftains too often pulling in different directions.

Our democracy will only become stable and sustainable when we move forward from ethnic formations to national political movements distinguishable by clear ideology, principles and policies.

Jubilee may have been no different from Cord-Nasa in that it was still an alliance of ethnic leaders, but at least it had made the first bold step towards a national movement.

But as the ruling party self-destructs, the Opposition is not moving in to take advantage of the situation.

As Mr Odinga pursues a dalliance with President Kenyatta and focusing on his ODM, basically abandoning Nasa, his presidential election running mate Kalonzo Musyoka, of Wiper Party, has joined the bandwagon while Ford-Kenya leader Moses Wetang’ula is neither here nor there.

That leaves ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi as the ‘Last Man Standing’ in the Nasa leadership. Can he fill the yawning void and assume leadership of the headless Opposition? Only if he can grow his Amani National Congress into a credible national movement beyond the western Kenya roots.

But salvation must not necessarily come only from political classes; the Saba Saba Anniversary (July 7) should remind all Kenyans that leadership often comes from below.