Kivutha Kibwana for President?

One of the individuals being fronted as an ideal candidate for Kenya’s 2022 presidential election is Kivutha Kibwana. Incidentally, this is not the first time Kivutha Kibwana is being fronted for such a role. Those of us who were politically active around the year 2002 will remember that Kivutha Kibwana, then a civil society leader, was similarly mentioned as possible ‘compromise candidate’.

One thing I like about Kivutha Kibwana is the fact that he is a real intellectual. Therefore my reckoning is that he would be a 'philosopher king', if he were to become Kenya’s president. And that can be a good thing, especially when you look at the track records of previous ‘philosopher kings’ like Nyerere in Tanzania, Nkuruma in Ghana and Leopold Senghor in Senegal.

It helps a great deal too that so far in his public life (first as MP for Makueni constituency and later as Makueni Governor), Professor Kivutha Kibwana has not shown a tendency to grub. So he would, at the very least be a President with the moral authority to lead the fight against corruption. This is very important because when all is said and done, corruption is a big challenge in Kenya.

It helps too that Kivutha Kibwana is an elder, meaning that he perhaps doesn’t have the arrogance that comes with youth. He is also an individual who knows (or who at least should know) how things are done: given his long experience in the civil society, as a presidential advisor, as an MP and as a governor.

At another level, we also see that Kivutha is an individual who has shown a tendency to respect the common man, the small man. So perhaps he would not be an elitist President and that would surely be a good thing.

Yet for all his niceness, Kivutha Kibwana is also a firm leader, as he demonstrated during his stand-off with the MCAs in his first term as Governor of Makueni.