KAIKAI’S KICKER: Team of rivals, beware of the rage of June!

On my Kicker tonight, President William Ruto introduced his Cabinet today as a “team of rivals,” a description borrowed from the composition of the Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln who is one of the greatest presidents of the United States of America. President Lincoln earned himself the reputation of a political genius for appointing his political adversaries to his Cabinet, to help him govern through the American civil war and the efforts to abolish slavery.

By invoking the spirit of Lincoln, President Ruto certainly raises public expectations of his new Cabinet that now includes the entire top leadership of the opposition ODM party.

And as he embarks on the 11-point agenda for the new Cabinet, we have only one recommendation to give to the President and his Cabinet Secretaries; a good memory and a strong sense of hindsight.

We recommend a good memory and a strong sense hindsight because of that old timeless and should I say tribeless saying about knowing where one is coming from as a prerequisite to knowing where one is going. As the President acknowledged in his speech today, the trigger of the new changes in government must not be forgotten. June was Kenya’s unprecedented winter of rage. The youth stepped up in ways not seen before. They forced the government to withdraw the Finance Bill and drove the President to the wall – forcing the dissolution of the Cabinet. There is even the little matter of the President’s regular foreign trips that seemingly came to a sudden stop, the travel break now well into its second month.

That backdrop should not be lost to the President and his new Cabinet, especially because of what it was truly about – and that is the software of governance in Kenya. This software is about the attitude and conduct of government officials – the public display of opulence was for example at issue. Random sirens and overlapping in traffic was an issue too – and there’s been a two-month break on that one too.  Extravagance at a cost of the public.  The list was elaborate.

Then there was the arrogance. Both in language and manner. Public officials talking down at citizens and generally ignoring their views. The month of June is basically the month of reference for the country, the President and his new Cabinet. Something shifted irreversibly in June, the aggregate of the shift being politics and governance can no longer be done the same old way.

I don’t know if this is stretching it but I think there is something about June that would detest that old political culture of homecoming parties for newly appointed Cabinet Secretaries. It sounds to me like one of those software anomalies on the country’s political culture. If June is forgotten, for instance, then prepare for at least 20 so-called homecoming parties complete with the extravagance that enraged the Kenyan youth to the point of storming Parliament just a few weeks ago.

To the President and his Cabinet, there’s only one dangerous enemy facing you today – a short memory.