What Gachagua has told his peers is nothing but the truth

On this one, Rigathi Gachagua, aka Riggy G, is right. Electioneering is about numbers. Go out and mobilise your bases. Go out and fight for every single vote you can manage to get. Get the numbers wherever you consider you have strength. Persuade your constituencies wherever they can be found within Kenya and the Kenyan Diaspora.

The alternative government, calling itself the United Opposition, is in a sauna. Sweating. Dripping. Who will endure the high temperature in the sauna? Put differently, the high-voltage political temperature within the Opposition is now peeling off masks. The hour of pleasantries has passed. The “Cuzo” camaraderie is over. The gentlemen are now looking at each other, interrogating each other and their voter mobilisation performance record to date. It is clear the numbers don’t add up. And that is where the problem starts.

Listening to the opposition within the Opposition, Fred Matiang’i and Justin Muturi have found themselves on unfamiliar ground. One Riggy G is demanding a scorecard from them. Table what you have achieved so far. But the heavyweights are not taking this lying down. Their comeback arguments make a lot of sense: That Riggy G is a bully, rhymes with majoritarian arrogance and uses ethnic framing in his campaign strategies. They also buttress the case with some conspiracy theories. So, good stuff!

Pragmatically, those arguments don’t say much about going out there to hunt for votes. They are fairly armchair self-defence arguments. They have a weak correlation with keeping the Opposition's grounds agitated. In terms of personality attacks, the attacks against Riggy G are strong. In terms of the main goal of electioneering campaigns, these are very weak comebacks. And, being a truthful man, he springs up a campaign performance record that neither Dr Matiang’i nor Mr Muturi can match.

Five things we can learn from the three gentlemen. First, there is no substitute for voter mobilisation. Just go out there, actually, beyond your home turf, if that is locked and shove numbers in your favour. Mr Gachagua may have been incensed to rant in public. But, evidently, he is right and honest in telling his colleagues to go plant if they expect a bumper harvest. No breastfeeding.

Second, in contributive justice, people who do not work should not eat. Well, that is what the Pauline literature in the Bible tells us. Riggy G may have delivered this point with brutal honesty, but gentlemen, introspect and show your mobilisation performance.

Third, the intra-United Opposition tensions test the humility to learn amongst the members. Who among them will lower their ego to listen and correct? There is no success that comes easy. We know from conflict studies and in psychology that some conflicts are very healthy. I think this push from Riggy G is necessary and timely if the gentlemen who have lined themselves up for the big office are authentic. The war of words is good for character testing, revealing inner motives and bringing each other to account. Whoever chickens out of this push and pushback might have other motives than winning the presidency.  And this is my next point.

Fourth, it is plausible that some of the Opposition bigwigs are actually not serious about competing against the incumbent. All of them showed great energy and political anger against the incumbent about a year ago. Over time, some of these gentlemen have mellowed. There is no significant effort to invest in the campaigns besides the PR pressers, as Gachagua alleges. It remains to be seen but Riggy G has opened the eyes of opposition supporters to carefully analyse who has been taking them for a ride.

Lastly, going by mobilisation capabilities, it turns out that choosing a presidential candidate might be easier than has appeared all along. There might be just a question of whether it is a Sifuna-Kalonzo or Kalonzo – Sifuna presidential ticket.  No wonder Kalonzo was breathing fire on his lieutenants in Ukambani that they are losing numbers to the incumbent.  

Let us be honest with ourselves. Gachagua has pulled a fast one on his equals.

Dr Mokua is Director, Loyola Centre for Media and Communications