Ofeibea Quist-Arcton
1 January 2003
interview
Nairobi — 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.
The implication there is that Raila Odinga is Narc, is that what you're saying? What about Professor George Saitoti? He was, after all, until very recently, Moi's vice president. And what about all the people who defected to the opposition Narc right at the last minute? Surely you understand the sceptics who said those people were in it just to be on the winning side during the election?
I think to a certain extent they were registering a statement to Kanu, that they had served Kanu and had stayed with Kanu but, at the end, Kanu betrayed them. Obviously they should have seen much earlier that Kanu is led by people who don't have any principles to hold onto. But I don't think we should not condemn them for seeing late in the evening that this is a party they should never have served.
We hope that now that they are in Narc, they will cherish the values on the basis of which the opposition in this country has been created. We hope that they will not be a source of disunity. I don't believe so. I believe they are committed and they will not want to be accused by Kenyans of having come into Narc as opportunists.
Madam Maathai, personally, what are you going to bring to Kenyan politics? What are you bringing to parliament as a freshly elected MP?
I will bring to parliament the values that I have been practising in the opposition, especially within the environmental movement. I hope to bring to parliament a sense of transparency, a sense of accountability that we have demonstrated in our work in the Green Belt Movement and a sense of service, a desire to serve the public for the common good.
And I am sure that this is why my constituency supported me so overwhelmingly, though I didn't have the money which is needed in Kenyan politics. So I am very happy to be there, to see whether I can introduce into our legislative system the values that I believe are very, very important - what I would call the 'green' values. In fact, I joined Narc as a leader of the Green Party in this country.
I will definitely not abandon my campaign for human rights and better governance, but now I think I can do a better job within the government. Now that I'm there, it's much easier for me to push laws and policies that will support some of the campaigns that I have been championing within the Green Belt Movement.
Finally, the opposition is united and I felt that the energy to bring about the change was there. I felt everything click. Kibaki was in place, the opposition was in place and this looked like the package to win. And so when I went to my constituency for the first time with the united opposition, I said I am ready now.
Do you think President Kibaki will be good for the environment in Kenya?
Yes, I am sure that Kibaki will be very good for the environment. He is very committed to the environment. He has been very supportive and he has been in the struggle for change over the last ten years. And I am sure that, in those ten years, he has really learnt - as a person who was no longer in the Kanu government - how destroyed our environment was and how destroyed our country was. So, he is very committed to making changes in the shortest time.
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