Kibaki's team focused on naive politics

By: John Mulaa
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[ Posted On: 2007-10-28 ]

President Bill Clinton was a master of simplification in politics when he bestrode American politics like a colossus.

He invented the slogan "It is the economy, stupid," and pummelled Senior George Bush with it. In keeping with another slogan of his senior political advisor, James "motor mouth" Carville, that explaining is a losing strategy, Clinton hammered his opponent with one persistent short message until he felled him.

In retrospect, Bush was not that bad a president. He was a policy pragmatist who did not hesitate to break ranks with his base when he thought it necessary. He was a realist who evicted Iraq's Saddam Hussein from Kuwait but stopped short of following him up to Bagdad despite the urgings of several hawks around him. They got the chance to finish the job when Junior Bush ascended to the throne.

Clinton's campaign and governance style have been emulated in many places. Clintonian tactics could be extremely useful in Kenya in this period of heightened political activity preceding the General Election.

President Kibaki's Government is on the ropes not because it has been an unmitigated disaster but because it is short through with an extremely naive view of politics. You can tell from the Government's attempts as it thrashes about trying to fashion coherent saleable message. Their message is that the economy has turned around and Kibaki needs more time to complete projects he has started. To which the electorate, judging by the polling results is responding "so what?"

The operative and winning slogan, even if it has not been so articulated by the Opposition is: "It is Politics, Stupid." And indeed it is.

The one grievous mistake the Kibaki Government made was to assume that creating material facts on the ground by way of improved economic performance would translate in automatic political support across the country. The President's policy advisers must be scratching their hairs out trying to figure out why the expected did not occur, and if they are, they are certainly in the wrong profession because the answer is staring them right in the face: "It is politics, stupid."

Concentrated on the economy

When the Kibaki team consolidated power and broke ranks with erstwhile allies turned trenchant critics, it assumed that the hard part of the job was over and henceforth the Government would concentrate on reviving the economy. In other words, the team, which will go down in Kenyan history as the most politically clumsy, assumed that its economic management record would speak for itself in a manner of a corporation where it is the bottom line that counts. They forgot that they were not running a corporation but rather a political system in which, by definition, politics are primary.

And politics has many facets, among them symbolism. The debate about the origins of many senior personnel in Government is essentially about symbols. The debate is not about the competence of the individuals—many of them are indeed very competent—but about the message that the personnel choices was sending. It was all about efficiency and getting the job done without care about the political costs in terms of perception. You can tell that is has turned out to be costly politically by the amount of explaining Government has to do. Calville's words, if you are explaining you are losing ring true in this scenario.

The Kibaki Tena team appear to have assumed that politics can be turned off and on, at will, and when convenient.

If they were politically astute and hungrily desired a second term, they should closely studied Clinton's campaign and governance styles.

To Clinton and his wife, Hillary, governing is part and parcel of campaigning. The next campaign starts the moment you are declared a winner of the last political contest.

The one time the famous American power couple forgot the rule, Clinton was kicked out of the governor's mansion in Little Rock, Arkansas, after having served only two years. The couple learned, and as usual with the Clintons, turned the experience into a useful political slogan. When Clinton campaigned to recapture the governorship, his campaign slogan was: "My dad never had to whip me twice." He won, and he never lost a political contest thereafter.

The Kibaki team may have belatedly recognised its political mistakes, but it appears too late to turn the negative experience into immediate political dividends.

All Kibaki's opponents need to do, and they have been doing it pretty well, is to transmute everything that has gone on since the last election into a political formula that places insignificant weight on economic performance. When the Kibaki team trumpets growth—efficiency — they can expect a powerful rejoinder; equity. The latter speaks to raw emotion. Guess who will win.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: John Mulaa is a Researcher and Consultant (World Bank) based in Washington DC. He is also a columnist with the East African Standard. Earlier in his Journalism career, he worked with the Weekly Review (defunct) and the Daily Nation publications in Kenya, as a foreign correspondent.

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