William S. Ruto & Jubilee: Don’t Be Vague; Revive The Hague Because We Are Losing!
One of the most Machiavellian moves in American presidential campaigning was unearthed (in 2007) when discovered notes left behind by Richard Nixon’s aide H. R. Haldeman revealed that America’s 37th president secretly directed his GOP campaign to sabotage peace talks aimed at ending America’s involvement in Vietnam. This Mr. Nixon did to bolster his 1968 campaign against Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey.
Nixon would also (go on to) craft another campaign strategy that effectively demonized and criminalized African Americans by convincing Americans to associate them with drug use and the corollary – violence. Incidentally and arguably, this ploy was the precursor to Donald Trump’s racist, xenophobic and fear-based campaign of 2016 and though he won, Mr. Trump’s scorched earth campaign forever damaged America’s global standing – especially on matters of morality.
Prolonging the death of thousands of American soldiers AND ruining the lives of millions on trumped up drug charges shows the depravity of some politicians and the lows to which they’ll stoop in pursuit of political power/office.
It thus comes as no surprise that Jubilee Coalition has resurrected the equally depraved and diabolical but effective albeit myopic 2013 “Coalition of the Accused” strategy that saw Kenyans elect crimes-against-humanity suspects Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto as its president and deputy president respectively.
The recent claim by former suspect William Ruto that “NASA is plotting to revive ICC cases” is as Nixonian and Trumpian as it gets. And Uhuru Kenyatta’s silence on the allegation is in my view, tacit approval of the allegation.
Mr. Ruto’s claim is also a bold-faced lie and proof-positive that Jubilee is losing the August 8, 2017 presidential race.
Consider the following:
The patently presumptuous and ethnocentric dog whistle strategy “Raila will never be president” that has been used to galvanize and unify Mt. Kenya/Central in the past has NOT taken hold because fair-minded Kenyans have grown tired of being told that the presidency is the sole purview of some and not others.
The June 11 reaction Meru accorded Kiraitu Murungi is Exhibit A of a (GEMA) base becoming deaf to that previously audible dog-whistle. Similarly, the stoic reaction of the June 1 Madaraka Day crowd – to a calculatingly ethnocentric program (in Jubilee’s Nyeri base) – followed by universal condemnation by all Kenyans only confirmed the fact that Jubilee’s base is no longer dancing to the tired and boring “Raila will never be president”, “42 against 1” or “Raila will address historic injustices on the backs of ‘our’ people” tunes.
The consensus is that Kenyans reluctantly “accepted” and even more importantly, “moved on” from the verdicts of ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Over the last ten years beginning the 2008 Coalition Government of PM Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki, the country has painfully and begrudgingly sought to solidify the national unity forged since then.
Having seen decent and unqualified servant/leadership qualities in one of their own, a people that gave America its first non-white male president (Barack Obama) are demanding more than a “last name”, an ability to “dab”, “hustle” or spin “vitandawilis” from their leaders. Wary Kenyans, thinking back to the dark days of December 2007, are tired of leadership that seeks to demonize and otherize unnamed “foreigners” and “enemies of ‘development’” even as a handful “eat meat” and cart/stash billions – in gunias – under mattresses!
Sensing rejection of the blatant appeal to tribal loyalty, Jubilee mandarins then tried appealing to the patriotic instincts of Kenyans. This they did by wrapping themselves around the Vision 2030 mega-project Standard Gauge Railroad (SGR). Eschewing the fact that the SGR was initiated in 2009 (by Raila’s Coalition Government) Mr. Kenyatta and Jubilee all but claimed complete and total ownership of four of five phases of the SGR project:
Conception & Initiation, Planning, Execution and Performance Monitoring!
Already cautious and now angry and hungry, Kenyans, wise to the sleight-of-hand Jubilee has perfected over the last four years did not buy the party’s narrative re: the SGR. It did not help that the project was shrouded in massive corruption – a metaphor for the Jubilee Administration.
So having failed to appeal to the ethnic loyalty of its base or their sense of “patriotism” and “nationalism”, Jubilee is now pulling out their 2013 ace card:
Xenophobia and fear by reviving specter of “interference” by the International Criminal Court (ICC) i.e. those “foreigners”.
It is a desperate move by an ineffective, corrupt and ethnocentric government that talks a good game even as it raids the national coffers. It is desperation evidenced by the following incidents of unrest in the deputy president’s own backyard:
– A barnstorming Uhuru throwing government money at hitherto ignored and forgotten Gusiiland IDPs eager to exact revenge at the ballot box,
– Cancellation of a presidential campaign visit to Eldoret – ostensibly due to security concerns,
– Heckling at the president’s events in Chesongoch and Chepkorio,
– Continued violence in Laikipia,
– Hassan Joho-like pushback AGAINST Jubilee by Uasin Gishu Governor Jackson Mandago and others.
– Utterances drawing the attention of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC)
– KANU’s threat to leave Jubilee and join NASA.
All told, NASA has thwarted all the moves Jubilee made back in 2012/2013 and true to form, the latter, as evidenced by William Ruto’s ridiculous claim is now defaulting to the tried-and-true move of demagogues by appealing to the unfounded and misplaced fears of its disappointed base.
Not this time.
Not ever.
