allAfrica.com: Kenya: Maathai: Change Kenya to Benefit People (Page 1 of 3)

Professor Wangari Maathai is a popular and respected Kenyan and a world renowned environmentalist, who rose to fame for her spirited campaigns against government-backed forest clearance. Maathai is also one of a new crop of MPs in Kenya, elected to parliament on the opposition National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) ticket.

Narc swept to victory last Friday, humbling outgoing President Daniel arap Moi's former governing Kenya National African Union (Kanu). Kanu had been in power in Kenya since independence from Britain 39 years ago.

Maathai, a zoology professor and coordinator of Kenya's Green Belt Movement, easily won the Tetu parliamentary seat in Nyeri, the next-door constituency to the one retained by Kenya's new president and Narc leader, Mwai Kibaki.

Maathai is also one of eight women (seven belonging to Narc) who, as one newspaper put it, "powered their way into Kenya's male dominated politics," by securing seats in what will become the country's new parliament.

The others are Alicen Chelaitte, Martha Karua, Christine Mango, Nyiva Mwendwa, Beth Mugo and Charity Ngilu for Narc, as well as Naomi Shabaan for Kanu, now in opposition. This is the highest number of women ever elected to parliament in Kenya's history. A total of 32 women were seeking seats as MPs in last week's historic election.

Noted for her dynamism and determination, long-time opposition activist Wangari Maathai is likely to continue championing causes that most politicians often shy away from. But will being part of Kenya's new government change her priorities?

To find out, allAfrica.com's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton interviewed Maathai, with additional questions from Evelyn Kahungu of the Kenyan documentary programme makers, Development Through Media.

Everything looks like sweetness and light today, now that the National Rainbow Coalition has won the election. But concretely for you, Wangari Maathai - being the environmental and conservation activist that you are - what are your priorities for Narc now that you're an elected MP with, we assume, some power in parliament.

The first thing I am looking forward to is a change in the way in which we have been managing the ways of our state and good governance, which Kibaki has represented and the fact that we are in a coalition which is broadly created by people who have been struggling for a very long time to create a better government in this country.

We hope that we will immediately make changes that will transform the lives or our people and especially resuscitate our economy and reintroduce a sense of security among our people and give people a sense of belonging to this country, so that people do not feel so marginalised and so terrorised by the state.

The National Rainbow Coalition was, in many ways, an opposition alliance of necessity and desperation to push Moi's governing party, Kanu, out. Can you stay united when you're facing tricky issues such as the allocation of ministerial, cabinet and other senior posts? Will Narc remain united or are we going to witness politicians bickering and jockeying for position?

I have a lot of faith in Narc as a coalition, partly because this is the culmination of efforts of uniting the opposition that has been going on since 1992. I was actually in the forefront, through another organisation called Middle Ground Group, which had tried to make the opposition unite both in 1992 and 1997. They failed. So now, as you say, they have come together as a necessity.

Therefore, I know that it has been a painful birth of an opposition unit, so I am confident that it will stay united. And also, not only are the leaders united because they needed to be, but because the people required them to. So it is a national consensus that the opposition stays united.

And yet Narc critics say Kanu hemorrhaged senior leaders and Moi's cabinet ministers to Narc, who claimed they were all opposed to President Moi, only when the ship was sinking. Why did they not leave earlier, why only in the final months of Moi's 24-year rule?

I think it had a lot to do with the fact that part of the opposition actually joined Kanu. That is the opposition that was led by Raila Odinga (one of Narc's leaders). He joined Kanu because the opposition had failed to unite. He thought that, by joining Kanu, maybe he could bring out the change that was needed. He found out that it was very difficult to change Kanu, even from within.

But doesn't that make Kenya's opposition leaders seem somewhat opportunist?

Yah, it does bring out that issue of opportunism, but it is also possible to look at it as an on-going struggle that sometimes makes you turn the way that people do not expect. I do believe that Raila Odinga is truly an opposition person. He has gone to jail, he has been detained. He has actually been more in the opposition and struggling for change in this country, much more and much longer, than even President Kibaki himself.

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories