Why Sifuna is the man to beat

The TIFA poll released yesterday is a harbinger of political doom for some. But, let me try and tell this in a proper manner. My grandfather, Mr M’Ndiira Nyonta, was a man of severely limited accomplishments. Never mind that as a little boy, I believed he was the strongest, most fearless, fiercest and heroic man alive. The heroic bit was based on some invented humbug about how he was a great Mau Mau general (He spent the war herding a settler’s sheep).

Among his brothers, he was the most unremarkable. One brother, Mr M’Ikiara Nyonta, fought in the World War II, served in Emperor Haille Sellasie’s personal guard, went on to be among the founders of Mau Mau and became General Ruku. Another of his brothers was a homeguard and spent the war squeezing delicate parts of Mau Mau fighters, and for his troubles, he was gifted a large piece of land by the colonialists. Another one was a Mau Mau armourer and went by his nom de guerre, Karisasi, to the extent that nobody remembers his real name.

Now, looking at the empty side of the glass, if all his brothers had kept away from that “terrorist” business, the colonial government would not have taken away our lands and my great grandfather’s herds, and I’d today be the proud owner of 100 acres of sublime, highland, specialty coffee, wagging a big bottom around the village and dragging an almighty belly, full of goat meat and premium muratina.

And my grandfather had memory of things no one else had seen or heard because he was a guy from another century. So he used to sing a song about two famous age-sets, Kauri and Nthare, which were very arrogant because they were comely of appearance and heroic in battle. So he would sing: Kauri and Nthare, you too will die when your day is heralded by the arrival of a severed goat-head.

I believe that yesterday’s opinion poll is the severed goat-head my grandfather from another century used to sing about, a harbinger of doom for the ancient regime.

President William Ruto is a consummate, take-no-prisoners and effective politician. He is, reportedly a political wizard, though the wizardry doesn’t appear to have been switched on when he was choosing his brand of politics, and he picked one that says that human rights and freedoms are nothing without economic development. He also went backwards seeking untrammeled power, meeting dissent with bullets as happened to Gen Zs and running an opaque, openly discriminatory operation that rewards only loyalty and kinship, rarely ability, merit or fairness. He couldn’t have read the mood of the country worse if you had dressed him up in wooden spectacles.

Three quarters of Kenyans are below 35; they were raised to dissent. Many parents can remember moments when their children made terrible decisions just to make the point that it is my life, my choice. I have never met a Kenyan, young or old, who thinks that we are better off with less freedom, fewer rights, less choice, wanton expenditure of public funds on expensive things that we are told are good for us but which we know, from experience, don’t work.

The man who is going to eat President Ruto’s lunch is none other than Senator Edwin Sifuna, the most underrated politician in Kenya today, because he is young, goes to rallies in a T-shirt and is being dismissed as “Mr Empty” in some unwise Trumpesque trolling. With nine months to the election, Mr Sifuna is now head-to-head with the president in the opinion polls and his party, which is new and struggling to hold its first National Delegates Convention today, comes in second.

On top of his clean-cut image, being simple and approachable, Mr Sifuna’s big advantage is that his agenda clicks like a padlock with what the people want. He wants freedoms and rights respected, he wants an end to corruption, fairness in distribution of opportunities (not appointment letters being passed under the table by politicians for hundreds of thousands of shillings) and he wants young people to be able to express themselves and protest without getting shot or disappeared. He has been arguing that strictly following the rule of law and constitutionalism should be the bare minimum of whatever the government does. And Kenyans agree.

Sifuna has been ranked only three times: In May when he was supported by 10 per cent of respondents, 15 per cent in June and now 31 per cent. He is gathering momentum and being the candidate with big sails as the change guy, he can only go faster. And he is far from being empty, he is a smart, eloquent young guy.

The other notable thing that has happened is that the country appears to have opened its arms and taken Deputy President Kithure Kindiki to its bosom; he is the runaway favourite to run as President Ruto’s running mate. More than half of respondents, a full 55 per cent, support his being picked as the running mate, scoring more than Gladys Wanga, Hassan Joho, Oburu Oginga, Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetang’ula put together. The severed goat-head has arrived for that crowd too.

And reading the ears on that goat-head, I can see one thing clearly: 2027 is a great political year.

Follow ourWhatsApp channel for breaking news updates and more stories like this.

Mr Mathiu is a communications consultant and farmer. [email protected]

• 

  Mutuma Mathiu: Trump, come back to the room, sir

  People bend the knee when America calls because it feeds them today. Stop, and see how quickly they quit picking your calls.

• 

  Mutuma Mathiu: Will 2027 be Kenya’s dirtiest poll?

  I fear it will be the most engineered and interfered with election we have ever seen.

• 

  Mutuma Mathiu: Why did preacher kill the children?

  Paul Mackenzie's cruel and pitiless brainwashing of parents to starve their children has come to haunt him now that he has been convicted of 191 murders.

• 

  Mutuma Mathiu: China trade deal too good to miss

  Think of this brilliant trade deal as act of freeing the slave to spite the master.

• 

  Mutuma Mathiu: What good speeches can, and can’t, do

  President Ruto landed in NYC with an unusually concrete pitch for a UN speech… The world is, certainly, listening to Kenya’s pitch. Walk the talk, boss.