Orange day: Raila�s party awakens

By Standard on Sunday Reporter

After successfully defending Bomet and Sotik parliamentary seats, buoyant Orange Democratic Movement leaders electrified Western Province with a declaration 2012 is beckoning.

Deputy PM Musalia Mudavadi with Agriculture Minister William Ruto. [PHOTO: ISAAC WALE]�

ODM chairman Henry Kosgei referred to Prime minister Raila Odinga as �Rais wetu� (our president). The Orange�s 2012 strategy was unmasked, which is to push for a hybrid system of government � presidential and parliamentary � to accommodate Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi and Agriculture Minister William Ruto.

According to Cabinet Minister Fred Gumo who unmasked the proposal, Raila would go for President with guarantees Mudavadi would be, if he won, his Vice-President and Ruto the Prime Minister. Ruto�s telling response was he would abide by the wishes of the party. The minister also talked of silent �accomplices� in the electoral �theft�.

“You know the PM�s position was mine if we had won. You also know I stepped down for Mudavadi to take the DPM position when we shared the half a loaf, but my chance is now coming,” said Ruto, leaving everyone guessing.

In one of its grandest gatherings after the two retreats they held this year, ODM leaders declared the party won, was forced by circumstances to share power, is bruising for 2012 meltdown, and Electoral Commission chairman Mr Samuel Kivuitu must go.

Trademark

Raila, in his trademark metaphors, had a message for ODM supporters over last year�s election: “Ile mshale mlirusha ilipiga swara, na ikauwa hiyo swara, lakini ilibidi tukawe kwa ndio mzozano iishe”. (That arrow you unleashed got and killed the antelope; we had to share to restore calm).

Led by the PM, whom followers refer to as �Captain� because of his tranche of images borrowed from the pitch, ODM leaders ringed the PM�s deputy and 2007 running mate Mr Mudavadi in a celebratory yet symbolic homecoming fete at Muliro Gardens, Kakamega. Raila and Mudavadi were dressed in leopard skin and blessed by elders from the 18 sub-tribes of the Luhya community, as a symbolic gesture they had been admitted into the community�s club of elders.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his deputy Musalia Mudavadi at the celebratory homecoming fete at Muliro Gardens, Kakamega.�

“You made him wear a leopard skin and from today, he will never be a coward again,” Gumo said, in the rally that pitched for a re-union of the Luhya under ODM, with Mudavadi as their spokesman.

Raila added: “You people gave me a good pass, I looked at the goal-keeper, saw he was dozing and shot the ball in. Then the referee claimed I was offside, Kibaki then scored on the other side and his was allowed. But when later the referee was asked who won, he said he did not know. You all know that referee spoiled the game,” the PM said, in reference to the disputed election results and the conduct of Electoral Commission.

It was day ODM closed shop for self-audit and cast an eye at the presidential parlour that controversially slipped through its hand last year, with devastating consequences for the country.

Litmus Test

The party to which the by-elections was the unity and continuity litmus test, now has 111 members in the hang Parliament, against Party of National Unity and its 14 affiliates combined force of 108. Three members of the Tenth Parliament from the fringe parties have not come out clearly on which side of the two blocks they prefer working with. They are Mrs Wavinya Ndeti (Kathiani), Mr Gitobu Imanyara (Imenti Central) and Mr Walter Nyambati (Kitutu-Masaba).

Raila assured supporters the party would remain united during and after the upcoming grassroots elections. “People are going around saying Raila has a rough time keeping ODM united because of rivalry between Mudavadi and Ruto, but I want to tell them that the party will remain as solid as ever,” he added.

As it danced away the day, occasionally looking over the shoulder to the dark season after the December victory it believes was stolen, as well as subsequent violence, Orange took stock.

“You people voted so well, you secured those votes until they were flown to KICC. In there they resorted to robbery with violence and stole our victory,” said Kosgei.

Praising ODM�s strength, the Secretary General Prof Anyang� Nyong�o said: “There are only three parties in the world, it is ODM here in Kenya, ANC in South Africa and Democratic Party in the USA. Our party is known worldwide and you must remain in it.”

In the Tenth Parliament, ODM lost four seats through deaths � two MPs were shot dead and another two killed in an air crash � it reclaimed three but lost one.

However, despite winning back Ainamoi, Bomet and Sotik, and losing Embakasi, Orange clawed back Wajir East seat for which there was no winner because of an unprecedented vote tie.

Raila�s party now sharing power with the President�s PNU also reclaimed Emuhaya, which was left vacant after Mr Kenneth Marende was picked Speaker of the National Assembly.

Ruto said ODM agreed to share its victory with their partners from PNU, adding the coalition partners must respect each other to ensure services they promised to Kenyans were delivered.

He said ODM had no apologies over its acclaimed victory, saying Kivuitu himself had indicated he did not know who won. “Kivuitu himself said he did not know who won, so which apology are you asking from us?” the minister wondered.

Raila introduced two ODM MPs-elect, Beatrice Kones (Bomet) (left photo) and Joyce Laboso (Sotik) (right photo).

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API/Source. standard.ke

Nairobi (Kenya) – At the rate it is going, South Africa could soon be expelled from the African Union for �setting a bad example� to the rest of the continent.

African leaders, generally, hate three things. First, anyone who tries to take power away from them, even legitimately at an election.

Secondly, another African leader who shows that you can leave power when your second term is up.

Thirdly, a leader who resigns �prematurely� just because the public has become disgusted with their rule.

First, in 1999, when the iconic �Saint� Nelson Mandela would have won a second term without even getting out of his bed to campaign for president, he walked away from it and retired to his village.

His deputy ,Thabo Mbeki, duly stepped up to the plate and won the election.

Now, with less than a year left before he retires, the ruling African National Congress has revolted against Mr Mbeki. Instead of rounding up all the dissidents and feeding them to the crocodiles, he announces that he was respecting the ANC�s wishes and stepping down!

Before the continent had fully absorbed the shock of his actions, on Tuesday, it was announced that Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka too was resigning, along with 10 ministers, and three deputy ministers.

Mr Mbeki has a thousand faults, and he drove folks like myself to near-insanity with the way he mollycoddled Zimbabwe�s strongman President Robert Mugabe when he was ruining his country and tormenting its citizens, but on the whole, his achievements were quite remarkable.

While his critics have slammed Mbeki for being too business-friendly and not doing enough to tackle poverty and inequality, he presided over South Africa�s longest period of steady economic growth.

Mr Mbeki was, without doubt, the most intellectual African leader of the last two decades. Some years ago, an American magazine reported that when he travels abroad, aides usually go and knock on his hotel door at 3am, and remind him to go to bed because he has an early morning meeting. Sometimes, they sneaked back at 5am, only to see the light still on. Mbeki would still be either surfing the Internet, or reading a book.

The Internet was to be part of his undoing, for there he met some chaps who had some crackpot views on Aids, and argued that it was not caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but by various conditions arising from poverty.

Mbeki bought int that view, which influenced his approach to fighting the disease even as South Africa became the country with the world�s highest infection rates. Mbeki�s government was slow to get on the ARV bandwagon, and become an object of hate for many Aids activists in the world.

South African newspaper The Times, quoted human rights campaigner Zachie Achmat, who had a memorable confrontation with Mbeki over HIV and Aids, saying: �This (Mbeki�s departure) is long overdue. Personally I would have liked to see him impeached for causing the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people living with HIV…�

His attitude towards Aids, though it changed to conform largely to the conventional scientific view, nevertheless led his Health minister to encourage sufferers to treat themselves with a concoction of ginger, beetroot, and a mix of lizard tail powder or something like that.

Mr Mbeki was paranoid, and thus became the architect of the slash and burn culture that saw him hounded disgracefully out of office. In the end, the monster he had created devoured him.

Mbeki was aloof to a fault. You have to look hard to find a photograph of him holding a child, like other African leaders like to do. In the 2004 elections, he showed his aversion for the lowly moments of political rallies by campaigning mostly by walking through neighbourhoods and talking to small groups of people. Mbeki is not one to join traditional dancers, and would never don monkey skins and prance around on the stage.

He would never do a Raila Odinga, and turn up as the Prime Minister used to, with his wife Ida wearing uniform clothes for a public function.

To the very end, Mbeki remained true to form. When he delivered his resignation speech, he was regal, and absolutely dry-eyed. A very presidential performance.

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api/source.The Nation (Kenya), by Charles Onyango-Obbo – September 25, 2008.

Johannesburg (South Africa) – From one enigma to the next. President Thabo Mbeki was never the most media-friendly of leaders, with details about his personal life always relatively limited. His replacement, Kgalema Motlanthe, seems set to continue this frustrating tradition for the media.

Basic biographical details, like the birthplace of the man who will soon be Acting President Motlanthe, cannot be found on the usually reliable Who�s Who of SA website, nor on Wikipedia�s website.

Do not rely on the Presidency�s website either. It has a long biography of Essop Pahad � soon to become the former minister in the Presidency � but only a picture of Motlanthe with his biography page blank. Wikipedia says only that Motlanthe was born in 1949.

In a previous interview with Business Day, Motlanthe was asked why so little was known about his private life. He responded: �I took a decision a long time ago that when I became involved in politics I would try shield my family from the glare of public life.�

Mkhulu (grandfather in Zulu), as he is affectionately called within the party, will take over from Mbeki until next year�s general election.

After his election as deputy president of the ruling African National Congress in Polokwane last year, Motlanthe was tipped to replace Mbeki after next year�s election should party president Jacob Zuma lose his legal battles.

His appointment came as a shock to many, who had put their money on Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete to replace Mbeki.

While secretary-general of the ANC, Motlanthe avoided choosing sides during the Zuma-Mbeki battle leading to the Polokwane conference.

However, he enjoyed support from Zuma�s cheerleaders, including the ANC Youth League (ANCYL). That relationship almost turned sour when Motlanthe spoke out against the �kill for Zuma� comments attributed to ANCYL president Julias Malema, and against an attack on the judiciary.

The rift was closed when senior ANC leaders, including Zuma, intervened.

Like Zuma, Motlanthe is said to be an approachable leader. Others say he is a unifier within the tripartite alliance and an intelligent politician. He is a self-confessed jazz lover who listens to the sounds of Madeleine Peyroux, Phillip Miller and Duke Ellington. Motlanthe lives in a gated golf estate and drives a Jeep Cherokee.

It is said that Motlanthe was influenced by the revolutionary ideologies of the Black Consciousness Movement of Steve Biko. In 1976 he was detained by the apartheid government for 11 months for his political involvement in ANC activities .

He also has a trade union background as a former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers. He served a 10-year sentence on Robben Island, rubbing shoulders with liberation luminaries such as Govan Mbeki, Nelson Mandela, Mac Maharaj and Harry Gwala.

Earlier this year, Motlanthe ruled out the possibility of going into government before next year as a way of smoothing relations between Luthuli House and the Union Buildings. Then, just a few months later, he was sworn in as a member of Parliament and later as minister without portfolio, in a move seen as an attempt to ensure a smooth transition to the 2009 election.

Judge Chris Nicholson�s judgment further accelerated Motlanthe�s move to the highest office in the country when the judge found that the president or his cabinet may have interfered in the functioning of the National Prosecuting Authority in the matter relating to Zuma. The ANC national executive committee then decided to recall Mbeki and replace him with Motlanthe.

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api/source.Business Day (South Africa), by Sibongakonke Shoba – September 25, 2008.

Johannesburg (South Africa) – Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has labelled South African President Thabo Mbeki�s resignation as �devastating�, state media reported on Thursday.

“It’s devastating news that President Thabo Mbeki is no longer the President of South Africa, but that is the action of the South African people,” the Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe as telling reporters in New York.

Mbeki, who brokered a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara earlier this month to end a deep political crisis in Zimbabwe, announced his resignation on South African national television on Sunday.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai are still deadlocked over sharing of Cabinet posts.

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api/source.Zim online (South Africa) – September 25, 2008.

Windhoek (Namibia) – The International Civil Aviation Organisation (Icao) ranks Namibia among some of the world’s most unsafe airspaces due to the absence of relevant civil aviation legislation and shortage of qualified personnel.

Although independent from colonial rule for more than 18 years, Namibia still uses the South African Civil Aviation legislation of 1964 and the Amended Air Services Act of 1947.

The two pieces of legislation are considered outdated and there is an urgency for Namibia to promulgate its own civil aviation legislation, which would guide the working of the Civil Aviation Directorate and subsequently haul the country out of the low standard classification.

Works and Transport Minister Helmut Angula told the National Assembly on Tuesday that this situation could lead to the country’s blacklisting if little political commitment is given towards the passing the relevant legislation.

“The lack of a comprehensive and effective aviation primary and secondary legislation consistent with the environment and complexity of civil aviation related activities since Independence is compromising Namibia’s membership to ICAO,” said Angula.

He warned that the review has a serious impact on government and the country’s civil aviation industry as it compromises the ability to ensure compliance in technical areas such as personnel licensing and training, the airworthiness of aircraft and aircraft accident investigation.

“These areas are crucial indicators of any country’s ability to ensure the safety and regularity of aircraft operations worldwide.

The integrity of our national airspace will remain questionable as long as these critical elements are not addressed,” said Angula.

He said the Ministry of Works is currently working towards the tabling of a proposed legislation on the Civil Aviation Authority.

The ministry has also invited experts from Icao to thoroughly assess aircraft operations of all certified flight operators, licensed personnel and identify shortcomings in the physical infrastructure.

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API/Source.The Namibian (Namibia) – September 25, 2008.

Kano (Nigeria) – “I don’t sell cocaine,” says the video vendor in Kano’s Rimi market when I ask for Adam Zango’s music video CD Bahaushiya. He is not referring to the white powder, but instead a new illegal substance — Hausa films that have not passed through the Kano State Censors Board.

The video CD I’m asking for is an especially hot drug: a series of six music videos satirising corrupt old men, lamenting fickle girlfriends, and featuring dancing Hausa girls. The musician, Adam Zango, also an actor and director in the Hausa film industry, was arrested and jailed for three months for releasing the collection during a ban on Hausa filmmaking in Kano.

The censors board in Nigeria’s northern Kano State was instituted in 2001 after the controversial implementation of Islamic shari’a law in Kano State. Film-making was at first banned outright, but the filmmakers’ association of Northern Nigeria (MOPPAN) suggested a “review” board as a compromise measure, which allowed the industry to continue, though with certain restrictions on language, dress and “close dancing between men and women.” (Five of the ten laws were specifically related to women’s clothing or interaction with men.)

The censors board and the film industry underwent an even more dramatic transformation in August 2007, when a private mobile phone video of a popular Hausa actress and her lover having sex was leaked to the public. The actress, Maryam “Hiyana”, and the man who had surreptitiously recorded the video immediately went into hiding.

Within days, hundreds of black market entrepreneurs in Kano, the centre of the Hausa-language film industry, were charging thousands of naira to see what was being called “the first Hausa blue film”. Outraged religious and political leaders called for an indefinite suspension of the Kano film industry and the mass expulsion of other performers suspected of “improper” behavior.

By late September, the Kano State Censorship Board, under the leadership of its new Director General, Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, had issued new, stricter guidelines to both filmmakers and writers in the state. Article 97 of the censorship regulations states that “Any person who… publicly exhibits any indecent stage show or performance, play or any show or performance tending to corrupt public morals, is guilty of an offence and is liable to imprisonment for 3 months or to a fine or to both such imprisonment and fine.”

The new censorship regime has had the effect of suppressing Hausa filmmaking in Kano, Northern Nigeria’s largest city. The exact size of the industry is hard to determine, but a 2002 study by the national censors board counted 133 Hausa films produced between January and August of that year, making the Hausa film industry second in size only to Yoruba.

Although filmmakers are still doing post-production in Kano, locations have been moved to neighboring states, the majority now being shot in neighbouring Kaduna State. Filmmakers bypass the Kano State Censors Board by marking “Not for sale in Kano” on their films and selling them in other states.

Filmmakers travel out of state to film and bring the digital tapes back in to edit, taking them back out of state to market. Writers, kept from publishing articles in local newspapers, repeat sentiments on blogs and pass digital photos of correspondence with the censors via email listserves.

Bus drivers plaster the windows of their ramshackle vehicles with stickers of “porn-star” Hiyana. Young people cite watching movies as inspiration for using their phones to record conversations with corrupt lecturers and authority figures who they then expose as hypocrites.

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API/source.Inter Press Service (IPS), by Amina Koki Gizo – September 25, 2008.

Nairobi (Kenya) – The Waki Commission on post-election violence was on Wednesday putting final touches to its report as it emerged that over 80,000 people who were affected were still languishing in camps around the country.

And at least 220,000 others were still living on doles from the Kenya Red Cross, in their homes and refugee camps spread around the country.

Details on the status of the uprooted people comes a day after former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan who brokered the peace accord singled it out as one of the foremost outstanding issues to be resolved. He was in the country to receive the Kriegler report and meet with President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga and issued a statement on his departure on Monday.

The statement said in part: “The situation of IDPs is on the minds of virtually all Kenyans I met. A durable solution must be found expeditiously.”

Members of the Commission of Inquiry on Post-election Violence headed by Mr Justice Philip Waki remained holed up at a retreat in South Coast and promised the report would be handed to President Kibaki even before the October 15 deadline.

The secretary George Kegoro declared: “We have enough evidence to recommend measures to prevent the country from witnessing the violence it did after the 2007 elections”. Mr Kegoro, who spoke exclusively to the Nation from Mombasa, said that the commission was progressing well in its final leg of writing a report.

“We don’t believe it was intended that we would get everybody… if this was intended, we would have been given more time, but our responsibility was to point out how issues of post-election violence should be dealt with,” he said.

The violence that plunged the country into the darkest hour in history left over 1,000 dead and 350,000 others displaced from their homes.

Special Programmes permanent secretary Ali Mohammed told the Nation that there were 7,690 people still living in camps in Nakuru, Eldoret and Naivasha, while another 76,400 are living in another 129 satellite camps around the country. These are camps that were set up by the Government as transit centres when the settlement programme began in May.

The combined government details of 84,090 still in camps and 220,000 being taken care of by the Kenya Red Cross would leave a large number unaccounted for, nine months later.

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api/Source.The Nation (Kenya) – September 25, 2008.

Gaborone (Botswana) – Almost a decade ago, non smokers in this country rejoiced when Botswana government finally came to its senses to ban smoking in public areas.

The smoking ban was expected to usher in a new era in which non-smokers would access public places like restaurants, buses, hotel lobbies, bars and offices without having to worry about finding such places enveloped by life threatening cigarette-induced clouds.

The reason behind this godly legislation was that smoking endangered lives of citizens, especially non-smokers and asthmatics, and it was therefore plausible to protect them by banning smoking in public areas.

What surprises me most, and other equally concerned citizens, is that nobody seems to care to enforce this piece of legislation, which has now become, despite its good intentions, one of the most neglected pieces of legislation in modern day Botswana.

Smoking still occurs in most public places, including offices in the private sector, where service providers have not shown any commitment to clearly demarcate smoking and non-smoking zones. Or if they did, they care less to put measures in place to block smoke from infiltrating non-smoking areas. Perhaps our service providers who want to allow smoking within their premises should emulate Oliver Tambo Airport, where there are designated smoking rooms for smokers to enjoy their thing without causing agony to other people.

I want to believe that our National Stadium, and other stadia around the country are public places, and therefore indiscriminate smoking is prohibited in these premises. But I have always wondered what gives supporters in the stands, especially the Notwane stand where I normally sit for soccer games, a right to smoke without being taken to task by police officers, who are now eager (thanks to the directive from above) to arrest individuals who bring in alcohol into the stadium. Why is the smoking ban not enforced in the same way as alcohol ban, and whose responsibility is it, stadium managers or police?� I currently live in the United States, where police officers are not always visible to take care of rubble rousers at the national stadia, but also ensure that nobody in the stands can indulge in smoking.

As more stadia will be undergoing renovation and upgrading in Botswana in preparation for the World Cup in 2010, I hope it has also dawned on the minds of authorities to allocate smoking rooms/spaces where smokers can suck in their cigars and cigarettes far away from those who still cherish their lungs. Time is now for the Ian Khama led government to commit resources to address indiscriminate smoking in public areas lest thousands of citizens lose their precious lives. Smoking kills faster than alcohol.

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API/source.Mmegi (Botswana), by Jon Browne, concerned non-smoker – September 25, 2008.