Author: Patrick Gathara
Published on: 21/03/2025 | 00:00:00
AI Summary:
The handshake signifies the coming together of seemingly intractable enemies into an agreement to share the spoils rather than fight over them. It has always functioned as a ploy by the political elite to dent popular momentum towards any change that threatens to upend the country’s rigid political caste system. Just prior to granting Kenya independence in 1963, the British executed another handshake with the person they had scurrilously accused of leading the Mau Mau rebellion. Raila Odinga, a permanent opposition doyen, has never won a presidential election. In 2000, he shook hands with former dictator Daniel Arap Moi. A decade later, in 2018, he was at it again with then-incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta. Kenyatta eventually failed to deliver his end of the bargain. Ruto had in 2023 ruled out a handshake with Raila. Raila had been leading weekly protests to push a rather dubious case for the election. Raila’s credibility as opposition leader has been eviscerated by these repeated accommodations. Today, he seems less like the political powerhouse of old and more like an old man desperate to cash in one last time. The real political power has shifted to a new generation that has loudly rejected the politics of handshakes.
Original: 979 words
Summary: 202 words
Percent reduction: 79.37%