The Social Democratic Party wants us to forget Constitutional reform until President Moi is safely out of the way. The party's reasoning is clever: With the current Constitution, President Moi will have no choice but to go home in 2002. But if we proceed with a reform process in the hands of Kanu, who know what will not happen? They could do a bit of plumbing, make Raila a powerless, figurehead President, Kijana Wamalwa a lame duck Vice President and President Moi comes back as the all powerful Prime Minister - same powers, same crowd of sycophants and looters, different address.

And Kanu could always say: "Hell, the Constitution says nothing about a Prime Minister, it only talks of the President leaving office after two terms. Which we have followed to the letter."

While we conjure up doomsday scenarios, we have to acknowledge one thing about the SDP's reasoning - it is long term, it may not see beyond the next election, but it looks further than most. And it admits that President Moi has the Opposition licked.

But, you see, politicians do not understand why Kenyans are so scared that President Moi might succeed in hanging on as, apparently, he has wanted to do all along. By the way, I am totally convinced and I have always believed that President Moi has never had any intention to retire whatever. Promising to do so is a typical tactic: Give the adversally what he wants, disorganise him, take the wind off his sails, disorient him. And when he lets his guard down in triumph, counter-attack viciously from the ropes with a blunt refusal to keep your word.

We saw it happen with Knut. You want a 200 per cent pay hike which we have no hope in hell of affording? You can have, now get on with the song and dance. And don't forget to mark the appropriate places in the ballot box. Five months down the road, hakuna pesa, hakuna pesa, hakuna pesa.

Like I was saying, the reason Kenyans are lining up to sign the NGO Council petition to tell MPs not to try and play God with our Constitution is because we are scared that President Moi will succeed in clinging on. And why is that so? There is a hopelessness in this country, a desperation that is as pervasive as it is strong. President Moi's governmetn down the ages has exulted Kenyans to keep calm, stay united, love one another.

And while Kenyans were staying calm, united and loving one another, everything went the other way. The economy, the hopes of the people were squandered with sweet words, and threats and outright lies. The argument now has become simple: We have stayed calm, we have remained united and we have loved one another for 20 plus years. It hasn't worked. Now we would like to try something else.

What the people are telling the prima donas in parliament is, Yes, we are like a tree, we eat together, we transpire together, and we expire together. But at some point every year, we must shed the old leaves and grow some fresh ones in readiness for another season. And the time to shed the leaves has come.

Instinctively, President Moi senses why the people want him to pick up his retirement cheque. He can't hide from the fact that his government's management of public affairs has been so atrocious that the level of disenchantment today had never peaked before. And hence the attempt to re-invent the government, to pay a little more attention to good governance. But it now it might be too late. Besides, we can still have all the private sector technocrats we want even under another government, under a different ideology, a new regime of political ethics and practice.

Besides, if Dr Leakey is President Moi's trump card, well it is a very good one. But it too will get frayed at the edges as the game matures.

I believe that the new team is good for this country. Because such teams have worked elsewhere. But this is not a unanimous view. As a matter of fact, it may well be a minority view by now. The argument that I have been hearing is that it is impossible for any person alive to be effective and efficient in this government. And the example I have been given is Attorney General Amos Wakos. Before he became a big man, he allegedly was an independent minded lawyer of international repute. When he was appointed, Kenyans thought that the sunshine of the rule of law had arrived. But it was never to be.

Disgruntled Kenyans are saying the new team was compromised the minute it accepted its appointment. They are saying Leakey's big test was the Cabinet. That he buckled under the imperatives of Kanu's political needs and agreed to put his thumbprint on a ridiculous reshuffle is to them all the evidence they need that his hands, like those others who have come before him, are firmly tied. And the longer they remain tied, the deeper he sinks in the mire until at some point the difference between him and those he found there will be lost in the complexities of face saving and survival.

Well, that might be a mite too pessimistic. But then, faith hasn't worked either.

The point is, whereas we want reforms, and we must have reforms, could our efforts result in what we have feared most and have wanted to change most. I remember question we put to one politician in an encounter recently: What happens to you reasonable guys when you join the government? "I don't know," he replied. "President has managed to buffoon us all time and again."

Is he going to buffoon us yet again?

Comments\Views about this article