Strength

What do you admire most about your political heroes? Or just about any of your heroes? I don't have a political hero, but I can identify what I admire about certain political leaders even though I loath and detest the whole lot of them.

Mr Raila Odinga is leading us down a dark and dangerous road. He knows this, but in his mind it is clear that he must do this to win. And he will do this until Kibaki and his cowboys see the error of their ways. The days of Kibaki Tosha are well and truly over; now we are in the days of uncertainty.

However, whatever I admire about Raila is the way he is determined to chart his own course in the murky waters that are Kenya politics. He vowed to break Kanu and this he did right before the last general elections. He has now vowed to have a general election before the end of 2006. he may very well do what he has promised. His political currency is all that remains of a shortlived and stormy relationship with Kibaki's cowboys.

Strength is to be admired even when it is employed in dubious and nefarious activity. Nyayo was a strong man and he wasn't afraid of taking hard decisions. Dubya is a strong man-he went to war knowing that he was right. He didn't let the little details worry him. These were to be managed by the likes of Powell and Cheney and Rummy. His job was to win at all costs. Strong Presidents will send you to die for the most flimsy of reasons. What makes them exceptional is that you will not rebel when they do so.

Kibaki does not have any strength of character. Thatcher once said that leadership, by definition, is not consensus. Dubya has demonstrated this and so did Moi. But Kibaki has been running a coalition government rather that leading a country. Perhaps he may yet pull the rabbit out of his hat, but his performance so far does not inspire confidence. The people who have exhibited any will in his previous government were not the ones who should have done so. Kibaki failed the country by failing to reign in his cronies. They didn't get him elected, but his 'coalition-partners'. Everyone else is a hanger-on.

Now look at what has happened. Murungaru embarrassed himself such that he is persona non grata in capitals that Kenya needs to court assiduously. Doubts are being raised about the integrity, if any, of Kibaki himself. This can only create more unwanted pressures, especially in the area of budgetary support from the West.

It is hard to admire a man who, while in a leadership position, exhibits weakness and uses profane language to shore up his confidence. What makes it worse is the the sycophants around him are given enormous powers to act as they please, and their agenda is not to chart out a different path, but to please the man. Their indifference to all but their constituents doesn't make them leaders, but tribal hitmen.

I will always admire people like Raila, not because they make things happen, but because the morality and the expedience of the situation doesn't impress them. When they want something they will impose their will on an entire nation to get it. Kibaki, for all his strengths, will always remain a follower, never a leader. After all, Moi fired him twice because of his weakness, and the Old Man was rarely wrong in his assessments.