Years ago I used to play matchmaker for certain friends. While the matches I made were all great relationships while they lasted, they were not all successful in the long term and once or twice when they went down in flames, the finger of blame was pointed at me.

You win some you lose some, but I learned some useful relationship stuff along the way and believed I was getting better at it with every new match I made.

Of course it's far too late to do anything about it now, but I wish I had been consulted for my advice before the political pairings that hope to be leading Kenya after the March 4 election were brought together. The voters might have had better choices.

For instance instead of Raila and Kalonzo, I would have Raila and Martha and on the other side I would have had Kalonzo and Musalia.

Why pair off Raila and Martha? at heart they are reformers and Martha would be necessary to keep Raila on the straight and narrow as far as continuing reforms go. If there were still ideological divides in Kenya, I could see them as being on the left.

Why Kalonzo and Musalia? I could see them getting on better. Both are Moi's creations who came into the cabinet in the early 1990s when Moi was looking for young proteges to take on the newly minted opposition of the likes of Raila, Martha, Muite, Orengo and others of their ilk.

Unfortunately for me and for Kenya as a whole, the pairings or arranged marriages have been consummated and like in the song we'll just have to make the best of a bad situation.

Now, in case you are wondering why I have not mentioned the Uhuru-Ruto match, let me explain. I would actually prefer to say nothing about either of them until the outcome of the ICC process against them is settled one way or the other.

Frankly speaking I'm of the school that believes they should not be on the electoral menu at all. I also believe that most of their supporters should be examined by psychiatrists for signs of sociopathy.

For those of you who don't know what that is, a sociopath is defined as a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behaviour and a lack of conscience. Therefore sociopathy is the behavioural pattern exhibited by sociopaths.

Having said all that, I must say again that I have no time for the majority of the people running to lead the country at this time. In the final analysis too many of those in the actual running have been tainted by the twin shadows of corruption and impunity that stalk the Kenyan political landscape like an evil monster.

In a normal society where people understood and had respect for justice, the most of our leading political figures in Kenya today would have been shamed into, at the very least, retiring from politics.

Instead the people of Kenya seem to have granted them immunity because Kenyans long ago bought into the let bygones be bygones school of thought and seem addicted to forgiving and forgetting.

By the way, this business of forgive and forget was given currency in post-colonial Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta (Uhuru's father) when he was begging colonial settlers in Nakuru to stay on in Kenya after independence.

What many people forget though, is that wily old Jomo did not actually say forgive and forget, he actually said forgive but do not forget. Kenyans seem to have forgiven the pain caused by the abortion that was the post 2007 election tribal and economic conflict and also seem to have forgotten those affected by it.

The other night I was watching my friend Karen Allen's recent BBC TV report on the legacy of past electoral unrest in Kenya and the programme just underlined this fact for me.

We seem to have forgotten that more than 1,300 people died and half a million lost their homes in the post-election violence. Many of the displaced have yet to be resettled and we seem quite willing to let the impunity continue.

Why have we in the media been so gentlemanly about this whole affair. Why have we as Kenyans been pulling punches when it comes to the real issues?

I don't know who will be moving into state house after the election but I can rest easy in the knowledge that in a brief five years' time Kenyans will have the chance to change their minds if they find they made a mistake this time around.

We'll probably never get it exactly right for every single Kenyan, but as long as we keep trying to get it right for most Kenyans, we'll be alright.

Perhaps the next government can do something serious about righting the wrongs of our past and in that way help heal some of the still festering sores of our nationhood. More about that sort of thing next week.

mgithahu@yahoo.co.uk