Lingering questions Sifuna must answer in his latest quest

Politics is a fascinating sport. If you listened to different pundit's perspectives on the Yvonne Okwara interview with Senator Edwin Sifuna, you would imagine they had watched different interviews. To those who support the Linda Mwananchi movement, the Senator was brilliant, overwhelming Okwara with his navigation skills on all issues. On the opposite side, the view is that the Senator was a disaster, unable to explain even the most basic of the policy platforms that his Movement was espousing. The truth is somewhere in between, the young Senator did a fairly good job, even of obfuscation, which is the stuff of every good politician. He handled the critical questions well, especially the one focusing on values as the centrepiece of the Movement.

But for a man who has been informally crowned as the Movement's presidential candidate, or at worst the running mate of a serious candidate, he appeared unprepared for serious questions. He was more like the debater/pundit we have always seen on our screens, not presidential material. If he wants to avoid being dismissed as lightheaded on policy, he needs to learn, and learn fast. I was also rather disappointed by his response to the accountability on the donations question. The flippant response missed the point. Accountability, for a movement that espouses transparency and integrity, demanded a more reflective response. My concern is not however with Senator Sifuna, he is a brilliant lawyer who can wiggle around the typical questions. My concern is with Yvonne Okwara. While she was generally effective, she missed out on critical questions that would have told us a little more about the Senator beyond standard bylines. The first one is the Team question. Who is Linda Mwananchi? Beyond Sifuna, how do the Team members, particularly its core team, differ in history, character, principle and ideology from other political outfits that have spewed similar reform promises in the past only to disappoint post the election? Do we recall NARC and its "yote yawezekana" reformist promises of 2002? If you look beyond Sifuna, and for NARC if you looked beyond Kibaki, the typical politician in that Team is cut from the same cloth that we have known throughout Kenya's disappointing political history. Even assuming that Senator Sifuna comes with great ethic and integrity credentials, he will run the country, as he told us, in a collegiate manner. The Linda Mwananchi college we have seen so far is just another mix of opportunistic politicians. There is little evidence of the genuineness of its integrity and reform credentials. Second question; Senator Sifuna was one of only four Senators specifically accused by Governors of demanding bribes, extortion and intimidation to clear audit queries. On a related matter it is said that those who voted in favour of impeaching former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, and Senator Sifuna voted to impeach, were paid millions by the State. Only Senator Sifuna knows whether any of these claims is true. But since integrity is the defining ethos of not just himself but the Movement, the Senator needed to confirm to the country that he has never sought or received any monies to aid in his Senatorial decision making. This would make him more credible if no one came out to contradict his denials. The third question that needed asking is about funding for presidential campaigns. We all know (and IEBC has confirmed) that a serious presidential campaign costs several billion shillings. We also know campaign contributions is how parties and candidates are captured by cabals during campaigns. These cabals then demand recompense when the recipients come into power. What is going to be different for Linda Mwananchi? The answer cannot be the few millions they will collect from ordinary Kenyans, which is not even the tip of the iceberg. Hence the seriousness of the transparency and accountability question raised by Yvonne on campaign contributions. I could go on and on. My point is that we need to raise the bar on what we demand of our presidential candidates. For anyone seriously aspiring to lead this challenging and difficult country, we must go beyond the mundane and really get to understand what is genuinely on offer, both on policy and character. The media owes us a duty to prod deeper. -The writer is an advocate of the High Court