Fred Oluoch
4 September 2007
column
Nairobi — Retired president Daniel arap Moi's support for his successor, Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki, could herald an intriguing new trend in which retired African leaders take on active and partisan roles in politics. But in this case, it has also left his former ruling party Kanu in a tight corner.
While it has been a common trend in Africa to try to influence who takes over after them, it is a new development for a former president - who still swears unwavering loyalty to his party - to support the incumbent from another party, moreover one who defeated his preferred candidate five years ago.
Last Tuesday, former president Moi declared that he will personally campaign for President Kibaki for a second and final five-year term, for the sake of national unity and stability.
But this announcement has put his party Kanu into a quandary, especially leader of the official opposition Uhuru Kenyatta. If Mr Kenyatta follows the footsteps of his mentor and persuades Kanu members to support the incumbent, then it will make history as the first time in Africa that the official opposition party supports the re-election of the incumbent instead of fighting to take power for itself.
Moi's support for Mr Kibaki is unique in two ways. First, he is one of the few former presidents in Africa who tried to influence their succession and failed. All the rest in the recent past - Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Joaquim Chissano (Mozambique), Frederick Chiluba (Zambia) and Bakili Muluzi (Malawi) - succeeded in hand-picking their successors.
Secondly, Moi is the only one who has gone out of his party to support a candidate from another party. All those who have influenced the politics of their countries after leaving power have done it within their parties, even though some have fallen out with their protégés, as happened between Muluzi and President Bingu wa Mutharika, and Mr Chiluba and President Levy Mwanawasa.
While Moi initially had a rocky relationship with the Kibaki government, he started making peace with the incumbent in January 2006, culminating in his appointment as Kenya's special peace envoy to Sudan this July.
The appointment was the realisation of his long-term dream of joining the league of Africa's respected statesmen, as epitomised by Mandela and Tanzania's late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.
With his latest move, Moi could be trying to emulate the late Nyerere, who continued to influence the direction of politics in Tanzania from the time he retired in 1985, to the time he died in 1999.
The late Nyerere not only influenced the elections of Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Mr Mkapa, he had a strong influence on some of the policies pursued by his two successors. It is still a matter of debate in Tanzania whether new president Jakaya Kikwete has made a clean break from the policies of his predecessor.
The other example is Mr Muluzi, whose continued stranglehold on his United Democratic Front forced President wa Mutharika to abandon the party on whose ticket he rode to power to form his own.
Still, the question is whether the 83-year old former president will continue diligently with his role as a special peace envoy to Sudan, or plunge himself back into local politics.
Moi, after dragging Kanu out of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) is looking at a scenario where Kanu wins as many Members of Parliament as possible in Rift Valley, which he can trade with President Kibaki. The trade-off here is that one of them, and most preferably his son, Gideon, be appointed the vice-president after elections.
The challenge to President Kibaki, though, is that he won the 2002 elections on anti-Moi, anti-Kanu platform. How he is now going to convince the public that his association with Moi is for the good for the country, is a matter of conjecture.
Moi will be working on the premise that Rift Valley rejected the draft constitution in 2005 because of his influence, an assertion that even those in President Kibaki's kitchen Cabinet believed.
But on the other hand, Moi was not happy that the opposition, after winning in the referendum, turned ODM into a political party, thus threatening his influence in the Rift Valley.
The two veteran politicians have always treated each other with respect. Indeed, President Kibaki, even in his days in the opposition, did not attack Moi directly. Having been Moi's vice-president from 1978 to 1988, he always maintained a modicum of civility even when his colleagues such as Kenneth Matiba, took Moi head on.
After the chaotic queue-voting in 1988, Kibaki kept his cool even after being sacked as the vice-president and relegated to the Ministry of Health, contrary to expectations that he was going to resign in a huff.
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