[SIZE=5]Indaresting…[/SIZE]
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[INDENT][I]The State House statement about Tuesday’s visit by Cord leaders was quite brief. It noted they had been invited for a state luncheon for the visiting South Korean president. They then got another invitation for the Madaraka Day celebration at Afraha Stadium in Nakuru for the next day.
There was no mention of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), or anything else.
In the Senate, Minority Leader Moses Wetang’ula made an equally brief statement admitting having met the President to discuss “national issues, including the IEBC.” He described the talks as “inconclusive”.
On TV the same night, National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale was similarly circumspect. He claimed not to have known what transpired between the President and his Deputy on the one hand, and Mr Wetang’ula and Mr Raila Odinga on the other, never mind that Mr Duale was at State House at the time. However, he disclosed that the meeting with the Cord leaders “lasted no more than 10 minutes”.
Mr Odinga was at a funeral in Maasailand when he acknowledged the call from State House. Those in the know say the only interest the President had in calling him and Mr Wetang’ula over was to try and persuade them not to hold a parallel Madaraka rally at Uhuru Park. Perhaps the invitation to Afraha was in the whimsical hope it would pressure them to call off their rally. Cord’s Senator James Orengo was then in the process of securing a court order from Judge George Odunga allowing the rally to go on.
Mr Odinga reportedly told the President that it was impossible to cancel the rally at that late hour. He didn’t have to say it, but the ODM leader knew he would get a very nasty backlash from his hyped-up followers if he backed off.
Officially, State House’s position was that the rally would interfere with the scheduled departure of the South Korean leader plus the arrival, towards the evening, of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Still, of far greater concern was the symbolism a rally at Uhuru Park held, not to mention the small matter of the likelihood of Cord drawing a bigger crowd than that at Afraha stadium as, indeed, happened.
The attempt to distract Cord recalls something which happened immediately after the bloody el-Ade attack on Kenyan soldiers by al-Shabaab. The Presidency was bracing for a fusillade of criticism from the Cord leadership, who were even threatening to organise a memorial on their own for the Kenyan dead. This was defused nicely when Uhuru Kenyatta invited Mr Odinga to join him in condoling with injured soldiers at the Forces Memorial Hospital in Nairobi.
The official memorial service later went on without a hitch in Eldoret, with Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari in attendance.
The Tuesday State House encounter quickly became a matter of media spin. Somebody leaked that there had been a “breakthrough” on the IEBC, and that both sides had “agreed” on a 10-member negotiation panel.
Quite apart from who engineered the leak, the big question is: was there a deal or not? Cord insists there was and, on this basis, rushed to name its five-member team. Jubilee says there was nothing of the sort. “There is no greater falsehood than this,” remarked State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu. The issue is who is telling the truth, and who is not.
If there was a pact, Cord was careless not to insist on some record, like a joint communiqué. Why the lapse? Was anybody taking minutes or notes at the meeting? And did this haggling over a negotiating team get sealed in less than 10 minutes Mr Duale confirmed the meeting happened?
At a funeral-cum-rally in Kisumu on Thursday, Mr Odinga quoted the President as telling him he would consider the matter of a joint committee on IEBC. If, indeed, that is what he was told, then Cord might just have to wait. To consider is not the same thing as to commit.
Now listen to what Mr Wetang’ula told the Senate: “We had good but inconclusive discussions to the extent that we agreed to meet and discuss further before we reach a level where we can put up teams possibly to look at the issues within the Constitution and other administrative structures …” Read it again carefully. This has a very different meaning from saying a joint committee is already a done deal.
Now a public ultimatum has been issued, which only makes matters worse. If, hypothetically, an agreement had been struck, what would be the wise approach to take? Go loud with threats? Or follow up the matter in the same manner it was raised – with discretion?