Don't let Gachagua turn you into his village entertainment, Prof Kindiki

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There is an old trick in the Kenyan political playbook, older than harambees and more effective than hustler economics, which Rigathi Gachagua has been running with the quiet satisfaction of a man who has discovered his opponent's weak spot.

The trick is this: Poke, prod, needle, and generally make a nuisance of yourself until the other fellow loses his composure and starts trading insults in public. At which point you sit back, sip your tea, and watch as the man who is supposed to be running the country descends into the gutter to argue with you.

Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, a professor, constitutional scholar, and decorated son of the Mount Kenya academia, appears to be falling for it. Mr. Gachagua is many things, not all of which are flattering. But the one thing nobody has ever accused him of is being a political amateur.

Since his unceremonious exit from Karen, a removal that was, depending on who you ask, either a democratic correction or a political mugging, he has engineered a remarkable comeback as the country's loudest grievance. He has planted himself in public consciousness like that relative who was asked to leave the Christmas party but keeps appearing at the gate with a bottle of wine and unsolicited opinions.

Gachagua’s modus operandi is simple. He says something incendiary, Kindiki responds, and Gachagua wins the news cycle. There is a saying that you should never wrestle a pig in the mud. You both get dirty, but the pig enjoys it. Gachagua is the pig in this metaphor, and is enjoying it.

Kindiki's problem is not that he is short on facts, but that he keeps showing up to the mud. A man with his credentials, Senate experience, constitutional court scholarship, and a CV that could embarrass most East African law schools does not need to be slugging it out in the political equivalent of a matatu touts' standoff. And yet, here we are.

Political scientists have a name for what Gachagua is deploying: strategic anger. This is manufactured provocation designed to destabilise an opponent. The goal is not to win the argument, but to make the other person look rattled, reactive, petty, and distracted. In a country where optics easily outrun reality, appearing rattled is almost as bad as actually being rattled.

Some of history's great leaders understood this. Abraham Lincoln apparently used to write furious letters to his adversaries, yet never sent them. They were for his blood pressure; silence was a strategy. Winston Churchill understood that fire in rhetoric must be controlled fire, the kind that illuminates, not the kind that burns down your own house.

Closer to home, the stakes for Kindiki are not merely managing his needlesome predecessor. The deputy presidency, in Kenya's political architecture, is for those with ambition beyond the present arrangement; a launching pad. William Ruto's second term is not guaranteed, but if it arrives, the question of what comes next will dominate every political conversation in the land.

Kindiki needs, in that eventuality, to look like a statesman. Not like a man who spent two years quarrelling with his predecessor through the media. Gachagua's greatest political asset in the regions he commands is his personality, not policy.

He is a mobiliser, a performer, a man who can work a crowd the way some people work a room at a cocktail party; relentlessly, loudly, and to great effect. Kindiki is, on a good day, measured, analytical, and precise. That is a strength. But it only remains a strength if he stops trying to beat Gachagua at the latter's own game.

The good professor's best strategy, and this is free political consultancy, is simply to govern. Focus on the mandate that comes with your office. Do the work. Let the motorcade move quietly through the constituency while the former deputy president holds press conferences at the gate.

In Kenyan politics, the man doing the job often outlasts the man making the noise.

For now, Gachagua has the microphone. Kindiki still has the office. That, if he is wise enough to remember it, is the better bargain.