By Prof. Mauri Yambo
It was reassuring to hear the two ODM-K leading lights, Raila and Kalonzo, come out so clearly -- and quite passionately -- early in the week in support of the delegate option for nominating the ODM-K presidential candidate. Raila's arguments were quite detailed and persuasive, and quite impressive for having been made at a public rally and therefore essentially off-the-cuff. Kalonzo reminded us that this has been his view all along, and there is reason to believe him.
Uhuru was quite brave to have come out a few days earlier -- and indeed he received some flack for it. Part of his reason for preferring this method, he indicated obliquely in a TV soundbite -- and historians will have to check out his claim -- was that the consensus option had indeed been exercised, after a crude fashion, in 2002! His point was that prospective successors to President Moi within the then ruling party has agreed to have Moi anoint one of them as the flag-bearer in the 2002 , and to support Moi's choice. But when Moi settled for Uhuru, the others jumped ship -- with disastrous consequences for the "project".
All of this can only help nurture internal democracy within Kenya's political parties, which have so far proven quite archaic in their governance -- and blindly, self-destructively Machiavellian.
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