GEMA Is Suffering Siege Mentality

Institutions are created for the purpose of resisting change, that’s their main function. And they preserve all kinds of things that one doesn’t want. But how you get rid of them I do not know.

Professor A. J. P. Taylor

Last week, Gikuyu, Embu, and Meru Association (GEMA) convened a conference for leaders from its various communities in Limuru and the ostensible objective of the meeting dubbed Limuru II was to endorse Uhuru Kenyatta as their presidential candidate and to explore possible ways and means way of delaying the ICC process to enable Uhuru to vie for the presidency in the forthcoming general elections. In the end, the leaders adopted a human rights argument for postponing the ICC process and gave a thinly veiled threat of violence should the ICC process jeopardise Uhuru’s chances of vying the presidency.

The Mass Media and Politics

Finally, the long-awaited election year is here and politicians –veterans and rookies alike–are gearing up for the forthcoming make-or-break general elections. At the heart of all campaign strategies by any serious politician eying especially the presidency, is management of the mass media. The mass media is the centre stage of any democracy’s political drama and even though they are indispensable to politicians and to a democratic political process, politicians adore and dread it in equal measures. To improve their prospects for election, politicians need the mass media to portray them favourably even when they are unpopular something which makes their campaign strategy somewhat of a ritual dance before the media.

Kenya Vision 2030: Dreams and Destiny

Every so often I come across young people who have unflattering opinions about Vision 2030 and quite frankly a sizeable population of the youth just couldn’t be bothered about it. One very striking characteristic of development observable in all periods is the inability of people to envision their destiny. Understandably, when we look forward we naturally see insurmountable obstacles to future progress which can be powerfully disillusioning. Those obstacles create debilitating perceptual walls which are some of the most persistent obstacles to social progress. History however bears out that time and again there are no insurmountable obstacles only people who failed to perceive insurmountable obstacles as opportunities.

Scramble for Votes in the Diaspora

The 2012 General Election will the first under the new constitutional dispensation and it will be historic on many accounts. For the first time, Kenyans in the Diaspora will take part in the elections. It is estimated that there are about three million Kenyans in the Diaspora and out of these three million Kenyans in the Diaspora, it is guesstimated that at least half of them are eligible voters which makes the Diaspora vote a significant voting bloc capable of deciding the outcome of the General Election. The Diaspora voting bloc is unique in several ways though.

Death Warrants –President Kibaki’s Leadership Failure

For the first time in the history of our nation, ordinary citizens are beginning to have faith in the judiciary. Since independence, patronage, corruption, and dearth of the rule of the law plagued our entire legal system making it dysfunctional. However, the situation is improving dramatically and ordinary Kenyans are very optimistic thanks to the constitutional reforms being implemented by the Judicial Service Commission and the Chief Justice in particular. However, in the ongoing criminal justice system reforms, there is a big elephant in the room and it’s the failure by the President to sign death warrants for criminals sentenced to death.

The Threat of Unemployed Youth and 2012 Elections

I fully support the war in Somalia against the Al-Shabaab -that ragtag band of terrorists whose cross-border attacks have terrorized Kenyans and threatened to destabilize our country. And whereas I fully approve of the government’s response to the Al-Shabaab attacks, I contend that the threat posed to our nationhood by our very own able-bodied men and women who feel they have no stake in our society and consequently feel they have no responsibility towards it because they are unemployed, is greater than the threat posed by the Al-Shabaab. This was clearly demonstrated in the 2007 post-election violence; it is an existential