Nairobi — Central Kenya is heading back to the political drawing board to make out a plan for a future without President Kibaki at State House.

This is one of the twin issues they have to grapple with as the Kibaki presidency wears on; the first being pursuit of national cohesion after the post-election crisis in which over 1,200 people were killed and another 350,000 displaced.

Those at the drawing board are all taking a long shot. The next elections are a long way off if the shifting sand that Kenyan politics is remains unchanged.

Early indications are that the grand coalition government will last its term barring an unforeseen jolt and if it outlasts the constitutional review process which, as Kenyans have been promised, should be complete by mid next year.

Gikuyu elder

Early signs, however, indicate that the Gema fraternity does not wish to remain isolated from the rest of Kenya whenever a matter of national importance like the constitutional review or a General Election comes up.

This week, former Attorney General Charles Njonjo and businessman-cum-politician Peter Kuguru announced that they had invited Prime Minister Raila Odinga for coronation as a Gikuyu elder at the Ruring'u stadium.

It is significant that Mr Njonjo, who hardly sees eye to eye with President Kibaki since their years in the Kenyatta Cabinet, is now the man spearheading the coronation of Mr Odinga.

However, the plans for the event -- which will take place in the President's political home turf -- are still hazy.

"Discussions are ongoing but it has not been confirmed," said the PM's spokesperson Salim Lone. Aside from the planned coronation, Mr Odinga will for the first time since the elections be returning to Nyeri today as a chief guest at the coronation of new Nyeri Catholic Archbishop Peter Kairo.

It is understood that those who are pushing for the coronation see it as one way of healing the political schisms that separated the Central Kenya region from the rest of the country in last year's General Election.

National cohesion

Besides the Njonjo-Kuguru axis, yet another group of businessmen, clergymen and politicians worked behind the scenes to call for what they referred to as Gema leaders to assess their current position and plan the next move.

At the meeting - instructively chaired by retired Methodist prelate Lawi Imathiu - the leaders spoke about building bridges with other communities across the country.

The leaders were particularly concerned that their community had borne the brunt of the post-election violence.

"Our main agenda was national social cohesion," said former Mathira MP Nderitu Gachagua, a member of the core group that organised the larger meeting. "We wanted to map out methods of reaching out to other communities for reconciliation after the post-election crisis."

The meeting was attended by Energy Minister Kiraitu Murungi and several MPs from Central Kenya. But it was given a wide berth by key senior politicians among them Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Justice and National Cohesion Minister Martha Karua.

Mr Kenyatta and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka had only days before the Meru meeting condemned Kibaki succession voices coming from the PNU camp on the premise that such talk was premature.

The two have been gravitating towards each other since the beginning of the year when ODM-K joined the PNU half-cabinet before the grand coalition was formed though any political ideas they may have are still a well-kept secret.

But their Cabinet colleague Ms Karua is leaving no doubts about her intention to run for the highest office in the land come the 2012 elections.

To underscore her pronouncements, Ms Karua went for and got the chairmanship of Narc-Kenya, one of PNU's constituent parties, replacing former Cabinet Minister Raphael Tuju who has taken up an appointment in the civil service.

The party's secretary general is Baringo East MP Asman Kamama while the organising secretary is assistant minister Danson Mungatana.

Inject life

Ms Karua's scheme of things has not settled well with some of the politicians who founded the flower party.

Among those with different ideas is assistant minister Mwangi Kiunjuri who, the Sunday Nation has learnt, has teamed up with former parliamentary colleagues to inject life into the Grand National Union.

This was the party that was borne when President Kibaki was still searching for a vehicle through which to defend the presidency in October last year. Mr Kiunjuri's allies in that scheme of things are Mr Gachagua and former assistant minister Joshua Toro.

"We are looking for generational change in the way the politics of Central Kenya and beyond has played out," Mr Gachagua, the party's secretary general-designate, said.

He was referring to the crop of political leaders who still wield influence in the region but who, like President Kibaki, former Defence Minister Njenga Karume and Environment Minister John Michuki have been in leadership since the Kenyatta days.

"In the coming weeks, we will be opening an office and then move on to launch the party.

"We intend to establish a nationwide structure buttressed by a super delegates system to ensure that all regions in the country are well represented and that such super-delegates, like in the American system, can always have certain reserved voting powers whether their regions vote for our party at any particular moment or not," Mr Gachagua said.

It is not just that wing of PNU's Central Kenya leadership that is quietly seeking post-Kibaki presidency alternatives. The Sunday Nation learnt that yet another group within PNU is pushing to have the party constitution amended in coming months to allow for direct membership and the opening of branches across the country.