DESPERATE TIMES...

The gloves came off a while ago. It became a two horse race and then donkeys joined and then donkeys became the good guys and vice versa. The very foundation of this presidential race continues to befuddle many Kenyans daily. It's never politics as usual in this great, sovereign nation of ours. Presidential campaigns involve a whole lot of ass kissing. You head to a new place and promise the people a whole lot of things you know you will never ever deliver while they scream their hopeful little lungs out. Then you kiss babies and dance to weird traditional music and sitting on low stools to be installed as an elder or watchman or deity.

A Bouquet Of Miraa For Your Consideration

But the trend is changing and this wind of change is being brought on by the opinion polls. They keep showing a pretty tight race so all 1,965 candidates have shifted their game to accommodate smaller groups and more specific niches. This was all kicked off by the rather disturbing image of the Right Honorable Prime Minister reaching into his jacket to retrieve a wad of miraa and proceed to chew it court the Meru vote. After all when in Rome.....

So to keep up we might see new things on the news for the next couple of months. I can imagine some random politician dressing up in a watchman's attire and walking around with a huge torch and black mamba for a photo opportunity. This would obviously mean he/she understands the plight of the lowly security agents    and would thus make pledges about heated cubicles for those cold nights, coffee makers for that adrenaline rush and obviously zero rating of mosquito repellents, torch batteries and bicycles.


Don't be surprised if some politician sneaks into your kitchen like Paul Ryan and washes clean dishes. Breaking and entering laws may be suspended over the next couple of months with politicians trying to outdo each other. You will wake up to scrubbed pots and pans and a king's breakfast while tonnes of media hound s struggle to find the perfect photo of a presidential candidate on his knees scrubbing your bathroom toilet. After all someone has to stick up for the brave househelps who do this on a day to day basis. Thereafter the politician would drive her in his car and have her register then promptly declare himself "endorsed by the people."

The strangest place where this would occur though must definitely be Naivasha. I don't know about you but I can never quite see anything good that comes out of that place in terms of news. Thus a presidential candidate would have to be particularly desperate to do this sort of niche campaigning here. But then again the stakes are really high in this election so i wouldn't put it past anyone. Cue the politician all dressed up in the white coats of a butcher in Naivasha running after a donkey waving a carving knife while wearing fake fangs. Much later he would be involved in a rather public demonstration where local butchers would be saying donkey meet is the same as beef. So they shouldn't be harassed. The banner would read "We Want Some Ass."

There is a cyclical nature to all of this. We don't get to see them for a while and then once every five years we can't seem to get rid of them. With the approach to March 4th I wouldn't be surprised if politicians would be fighting on the streets of Nairobi to find a spot to be seen with hawkers. So check that you may be buying  your vegetables from  a possible inhabitant of the house on the hill. And to fit in with particular cliques there will be some sipping uji, drinking chang'aa and smoking weed in dorm rooms to be reach out any part of the population that they can reach. You laugh? These are desperate times. And you know what they say about those....