Mbula Mutula

The Linda Mwananchi retreat that 'endorsed' Edwin Sifuna has left me wondering whether parts of the opposition understand how dangerous these half baked moves are, since Kalonzo Musyoka, Fred Matiang’i, Rigathi Gachagua and James Orengo were not all sitting in that room when such a major presidential decision was made. Then almost immediately, Daily Nation published “Orengo missing as Linda Mwananchi endorses Sifuna,” turning the absence itself into the political story and feeding exactly the kind of division narrative that an opposition claiming to want one candidate should be trying to avoid. That becomes even more interesting when you remember that Nation Media Group is now majority owned by Ruto through proxy by Tanzanian businessman Rostam Azizi. Sometimes you genuinely wonder who is helping whom here, since an opposition meeting produces an endorsement without several major figures present, then the next morning the conversation is no longer about Sifuna taking on Ruto but about Orengo skipping the meeting and cracks inside the opposition. Sifuna is already a serious political figure, so if the opposition decides he is the man, let that endorsement happen properly with Kalonzo, Gachagua, Matiang’i, Orengo and the other major players sitting there, so nobody spends the following morning counting empty chairs. The uncomfortable part is that Sifuna’s real enemies may eventually turn out not to be sitting inside Kenya Kwanza at all, but inside an opposition