One Kenya: you can go wherever you like

Amir Ibrahim looks at national politicians and their relative success in having political rallies outside their home boundaries. It is hard to argue that these visits would translate into votes without partnerships with resident politicians. However, Ibrahim says that this is a positive movement towards national cohesion. Thoughts?

So we have progress? No doubt, and we should be grateful that politicians can increasingly go into ethnic zones where they know the majority view is opposed to them and where they are unlikely to make much in political mileage in an election. It is especially encouraging that even as politicians wage their wars and struggle against each other, the Kenyan people are increasingly tolerant and that even a politician under siege can expect both peace and the public’s ear when he visits any part of the country.

On Canadian Barristers and Hubris, and the Sanctity of Freedom-fighters

It would be manifestly dishonest for anyone to describe Miguna Miguna as humble. The man seethes, bristles, and otherwise emanates the most virulent sparks of arrogance, and a penchant to ride roughshod over everyone who dissents from his way. Indeed, he considers tout le monde intellectually inferior to him, and when he deigns to communicate with ordinary mortals, the exasperation in his tone, the condescending patience, is of a man hobbled tragically with the company of imbeciles. The frost between PNU and ODM, and between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga over this katiba business is attributable to his singular and implacable animus. He treated Prof Kivutha Kibwana like an academic failure in a remedial class. Eventually, the political positions hardened, and a tacit agreement to disagree seemed the only sensible outcome. But our Miguna has been quite busy, hasn't he, passing severe judgement on Moi, Balala, Ruto, Kalonzo, Uhuru and anyone not seen to toe the PM, or more likely, Miguna's line. His verdicts bestride a most absurd and spurious binary of terms: those for the PM, or more probably, Miguna, are revolutionaries, reformists, or both, whereas those who aren't are KANU or Moi orphans, misty eyed with abject nostalgia for the Dark Ages.In the context of rapid amassing of enemies, Miguna is insuperable. 

More from Eric Ngeno.

The Looming Class war in Kenya

I remember reading, almost a year ago, an article by the former member of parliament for Subukia, Hon. Koigi Wamwere, that spoke of a section of Kenyans retreating to high-walled complexes in search of solace and security. The fact is, there is a rise in the number of Kenyans who grow richer by day, but who no longer feel safe and need to move to new neighbourhoods and invest in more security; it is these to whom Koigi referred.

Read more from James Muritu here.

Kibaki must now answer back

President Kibaki is a mysterious, inscrutable old man. That in a nutshell is why the opposition for all its boasts about its political prowess has found it impossible to beat him; resorting instead to smashing the chessboard and the pieces. It is difficult to beat an old man whose core strategy is to ignore you.

For Kenya at large, much accustomed as it is to an over-bearing head of state and government, Mwai Kibaki's presidency -for all the calls for a reduction in presidential powers- has proved to be a most introverted one. Apart from a brief series of outings in the campaign period, gone was the constancy of the powerful, omniscient, hectoring, itinerant patriarch. Instead, all that filtered down from the presidency are genially broadcasted progress reports on the growth of the economy, achievements in healthcare and in governance -much of them relayed by the Government Spokesman or the Presidential Press Service.

Read more from Wanjiru Kamau here.