Once described by his eventual successor Mwai Kibaki as one akin to “attempting to cut a mugumo tree using a razor”, former President Daniel arap Moi made challenging and outsmarting the independence party Kanu an arduous task.
But since he left office in 2002, Kanu, now chaired by his son and Baringo Senator Gideon Moi, has been on a downward trend.
The rains that beat Kanu and the Moi family, which started in 2002 when the party lost the presidential elections for the first time in the country’s 39-year post-independence history, came in torrents in the subsequent polls in 2007.
In that election, just five years after Mzee Moi handed over power to his successor Mwai Kibaki, his family faced opposition in the Rift Valley.
Moi’s sons Gideon, Jonathan, and Raymond were in the race for election as members of Parliament in Baringo Central, Eldama Ravine, and Rongai constituencies, respectively, all on a Kanu ticket, the independence party that had become synonymous with Mzee Moi in his 24 years, four months and eight days at the helm of Kenyan politics as president.
Gideon was then serving his first term as Baringo Central MP, having replaced his father five years earlier.
This was the first time in 39 years that Mzee Moi was not representing the constituency that was called Baringo North until 1966.
On the other hand, Moi’s protégé, an ambitious, energetic Eldoret North MP William Ruto was angling to be the Rift Valley point man for an equally ambitious Raila Odinga running to be president for the second time after coming third after Moi and Kibaki in 1997.
The younger Ruto, who had been under Moi’s wing since 1992 until 2002 when he supported Moi’s not-so-popular choice for presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta, knew that his time was here and he took it, pushing leaps and bounds to sell Mr Odinga’s orange in place of the cockerel — the one-finger salute party that had bestrode the lengths and breadths of the land of the rolling hills, the rift valley.
When the push and shove of that elections ended, none of the three Moi sons were standing — and William Ruto, firmly behind Mr Odinga — the same man whose Kibaki Tosha declaration in 2002 swept Kanu out of the political matrix — had a huge following in the region.
Incidentally, President Kenyatta, who was then chairman of Kanu, having defeated former powerful Cabinet minister Nicholas Biwott [now deceased] in the race for the top party seat, had played a crucial role in the formation of Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) following their move to come together to oppose the 2005 proposed Constitution.
Besides all his sons losing their MP elections, Kanu, and by extension Moi, lost all the MP seats in his Baringo backyard to ODM, save for Prof Hellen Sambili who won Mogotio seat on a United Democratic Movement ticket.
In a similar humiliation, firebrand Kanu Secretary-General Nick Salat also lost his Bomet parliamentary seat. The won a paltry 14 seats nationwide.
Twelve years after his exit from the political scene, and following his burial on Wednesday, Gideon Moi and by extension, Kanu is pulling all stops to re-invent themselves at a time when Dr Ruto is a leading presidential contender ahead of the 2022 elections.
“After we laid Mzee to rest, we have given the family seven days before the 40-day mourning period starts. During this period, we will welcome Kenyans supporting Kanu from all walks of life to Kabarak to pay their respects to Mzee and to tell us their proposals on how to re-invent Kanu as we aim for the next political battle,” Kanu secretary-general Nick Salat told the Nation.
In its grand plan, it appears, Kanu is leaving nothing to chance, and it involves elevating Gideon Moi’s position and working up the party and grassroots branches.
Alluding to the symbolic hand-over of the political leadership in the Moi family to Gideon, Mr Salat said: “We are focused on re-awakening Kanu as Raymond Moi said, and at the centre of it all will be Gideon Moi, whom we will ask to present the party to take its rightful position in Kenyan politics as well as re-awaken, re-activate and re-connect with our massive, unmatched grassroots following.”
“This 2020 means a lot to us as a party, we are going for outreach to do a vigorous grassroots sensitisation and Kanu is not an island, we are also looking forward to really taking out rightful place in this country’s political landscape,” Mr Salat said.
At the same time, a section of Luhya MPs are reaching out to Senator Moi to form alliance with the ‘Mulembe’ community in his journey towards the 2022 succession politics.
MPs Ayub Savula (Lugari) and Tindi Mwale (Butere) asked Mr Moi, who was handed over the political leadership of the Rift Valley region after the death of his father and second president of Kenya Daniel Moi, to work with a Luhya presidential candidate and form a coalition so as to take over from President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Mr Savula said the former president loved the people of Western region and ensured they had at least eight ministerial positions in his government.
“Mzee loved us so much. He did not discriminate from his administration. We recognise the position handed over to his youngest son, Gideon Moi and ask him to work with us, just like his late father. We want to form a coalition with him in the 2022 succession politics,” said Mr Savula.
Soy MP Caleb Kositany, a key Ruto ally, however, laughed off claims that Jubilee was losing popularity in the vote-rich region with Kanu and CCM inroads.
“Jubilee is still the party to beat in Rift Valley and still enjoys enormous support. At the moment, there’s no other strong party in the region rather than Jubilee, we are planning to roll out a vigorous grassroots campaign for the party,” Mr Kositany said.
Mr Salat remained defiant, saying while the party “will not focus on individuals”, it was not scared of the political fight, either, alluding to the Ruto-Gideon war for the soul of the Rift Valley.
The party, he said, was also banking on the newfound Uhuru-Raila relationship under the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) for major political realignments following a shift in party alliances between the younger Moi and Dr Ruto’s allies as they seek to bolster their support network in the 2022 succession politics.
Currently, Kanu has eight MPs in the National Assembly of 290 elected representatives, two senators out of 47 elected members and one governor out of the 47 county chiefs.
Explained Mr Salat: “Kanu will play its rightful role in jumping in for an inclusive nation, we want to spread the cake, cut down on corruption and there is enough money to have proper leadership and that is why we support BBI report spearheaded by the President and former Premier.”
Eldoret-based political commentator Philip Chebunet said: “The death of the former president is a big blow to Kanu fraternity because he has left a big vacuum with no one equal to the task of putting the independence party to where it should be.”
While he argues that Dr Ruto has a clear head start in the running of the Rift Valley politics and had “pretty much succeeded” in his rebellion against the Mois, Moi University lecturer Prof James ole Kiyiapi believes Ruto erred in not ensuring that the region remained united.
“This is no longer the Rift Valley politics we know where Moi would insist that it should also include the Maasai, the Turkana and the Kikuyu. And while Ruto is undoubtedly in control of the Kalenjin politics, he failed terribly in ensuring that the other communities in the region follow in the footsteps of their loyalty to Moi, when it comes to him,” said Prof Kiyiapi.
Additional reporting by Shaban Makokha
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