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Ten months to the general election, leading presidential contenders president Kibaki, Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka have assembled their war councils in readiness for battle. The respective kitchen cabinets, among other things, aim to craft winning strategies for the candidates, raise campaign slush funds and coordinate publicity and propaganda to beat the competition. We look at who is who in the candidates’ kitchen cabinet.

President Kibaki has assembled a multi-layered team comprising of his traditional friends from the days of the Democratic party (DP) as well as a galaxy of new faces that reads like who is who in Kenya’s corporate scene.

The first level in Kibaki’s team are professionals, including leading academics, technocrats and lawyers. Insiders say that this group, which meets twice a week at a Nairobi hotel, is led by Professor Nick Wanjohi, the vice chancellor of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. Others in this group include Alex Mureithi, the presidents’ nephew, Machira Gichohi, the Managing Director of the Kenya Dairy Board, Jean Kamau, a prominent lawyer working at the International Republican Institute and lawyer Lee Muthoga.

This group mainly brainstorms on strategy and has been weighing the various options they think can work to ensure Kibaki gets a second and last term at State House.

The second tier in Kibaki’s kitchen cabinet is a group of corporate heads cutting across the entire business spectrum. Some of the CEOs in this group are Gerald Mahinda, the Managing Director, East Africa Breweries, Evans Kidero, Chief Executive Mumias Sugar, Adan Mohamed, the CEO of Barclays Bank, Lee Karuri, the Chairman of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance and industrialist Manu Chandaria. Others are James Mwangi, the chief executive of Equity Bank, and Godfrey Karuri, the chairman, Gateway Insurance.

According to insiders, meetings by this group are chaired by state house based permanent secretary for strategy, Stanley Murage.

The third layer in the Kibaki team is a group of old timers who have stood with Kibaki ever since his first stab at presidency in the 1992 election. This group is loosely referred to as the “Muthaiga Club” as most of them used to play golf with the president prior to the 2002 election. The group consists of what has always been the DP council of elders, a group of wealthy businessmen who have largely funded Kibaki campaigns since 1992.

Insiders say the team leader of this group is Julius Gecau, a long-serving former Managing Director of Kenya Power and Lighting Company. Gecau served at KPLC during the Kenyatta era. He was unceremoniously shown the door by retired President Moi in 1984 and replaced by Samuel Gichuru who served until the Narc government came to power in 2003.

Names in this group include Nat Kang’ethe of MCL, Saatchi and Saatchi, the international public relations firm, Eddy Njoroge the managing of Kengen, Peter Kanyago, a businessman and chairman, Othaya Development Group, George Muhoho, tha Managing Director Kenya Airports Authority, Duncan Ndegwa, former Central Bank Governor, and Joe Wanjui, a businessman and Chancellor of the Nairobi University.

Until 2002 when he briefly abandoned Kibaki and joined the Uhuru Kenyatta campaign, Cabinet Minister Njenga Karume was the most visible face of the Muthaiga Group and also Chairman of the DP council of elders.

The Muthaiga Group act as the final sieve of the decisions made by the other groups. Its advice mostly determines the course of action the president takes. The three teams are coordinated by Ms. Judy Wanjiku Kibaki, the president’s eldest daughter, who doubles as secretary to all the three think-tanks.

Some names in the Kibaki war cabinet

George Muhoho
The former priest has been a friend to Kibaki since their days as cabinet ministers in the Moi government. He is the elder brother of Mama Ngina Kenyatta and uncle to official opposition leader Uhuru Kenyatta. The soft-spoken Managing Director of the Kenya Airports Authority is among the DP founder members where he serves as member of the party’s council of elders.

Eddy Njoroge
He is the managing director of Kengen company. Though a long time friend of President Kibaki and his main campaign fund-raiser, little else is known about him. He hardly appears in public. Until recently his photographs were a rarity in the media. He comes from Kanjeru village in Kabete constituency.

Peter Kanyago
He is a long-time associate of the president, coming from the same Othaya constituency. He is the chairman of Othaya Development Association. He is also a key co-ordinator of Kibaki’s fund-raising activities. A successful businessman, Kanyago chairs boards of giant companies including the freight-forwarding Express Kenya, East Africa Couriers, East Africa Elevators (OTIS), Toyota Kenya Foundation and the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA). Together with Nat Kang’ethe, they own the local franchise of MCL Saatchi and Saatchi, the international advertising and public relations firm that has run the multi-million shilling publicity for Kibaki’s presidential bid since 1992.

Nat Kang’ethe
He is among the first Africans to be registered as a member of the Chartered Institute of Accountants and to establish an audit firm, Nat Kang’ethe and Associates. The firm has clients ranging from government agencies to international companies and NGOs.

Lee Karuri
Trained as an architect at the University of Nairobi, Karuri took over the chairmanship of Kenya Private Sector Alliance from Arun Devani, a pioneer Kenyan industrialist, in 2005. a staunch Christian and keen golfer, Karuri has turned KEPSA into a vocal organization that now speaks on public affairs. The association has been particularly vocal in promoting the so-called public-private sector partnership.

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In LDP, the party is yet to agree on the results of the grassroots elections held in September last year. The elections put party newcomers at loggerheads with incumbent MPs who were easily floored in most of the 210 constituencies. After threats by MPs led by Raila’s right hand man, Otieno Kajwang, that they would decamp if the party headquarters did not recognize them as the bona fide party leaders, the party developed cold feet and very little has been heard of the results of the grassroots elections since then.

Last month, an attempt to push the party into constituting the party national delegates congress was shelved when two camps emerged with one, fronted by Joseph Kamotho and another, led by Mumbi Ng’aru emerged over the issue.

Another rift in the party is simmering between Prof. Larry Gumbe, the party chairman, and Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o over the party’s role in ODM-Kenya coalition. This is on top of the age old war between the Raila and Musyoka camp.

In Ford Kenya, the party is still losing members. Recent defectors are Davis Nakitare, MP for Saboti who decamped to Narc-kenya over the weekend. Earlier, Enock Kibunguchy and Mukhisa Kituyi defected from the party after failing to capture the party’s chairmanship. He also joined Narc-Kenya.

Other MPs who have ditched the party include Dr Bonny Khalwale, the MP for Ikolomani, and Soita Shitanda, who formed the unregistered New Ford Kenya. The exodus from Ford Kenya began when the party bungled with its elections, sending away Kituyi, one of the party’s founder members.

As for Ford people, its biggest threats are the inroads both Narc-Kenya and ODM-Kenya are making into the party’s traditional stronghold. On the Narc-Kenya side, Catherine Nyamato, a former nominated MP, is leading a formidable group of Narc-Kenya aspirants that is running a well targeted campaign to recruit members into the party. On the other hand, Omingo Magara, the MP for Mugirango South, is leading an ODM rebellion against Simeon Nyachae in Gusiiland.

In what seems to be the proverbial lull before the storm, the tug of war over Kanu leadership has taken a low profile since the courts reinstated Uhuru Kenyatta as party chairman. However, at the registrar of political parties in Sheria House, Nicholas Biwott is still the registered chairman after the coup he engineered towards the end of last year.

In the Uhuru faction, the party is divided between a faction allied to Uhuru and the faction allied to William Ruto, who is secretary general of Uhuru’s Kanu. In Uhuru’s camp are Moi’s son Gideon and MP Nick Salat. On the other hand, Ruto’s faction includes vocal Eldama Ravine MP Musa Sirma. Uhuru and Ruto, however, closed ranks after Moi and Biwott engineered the coup over Uhuru and Ruto’s decision to merge with LDP into the ODM-K party.

But if the events of the two weeks are anything to go by, Moi seems to have softened over Kanu’s decision to join ODM-K. About a week ago, Biwott and members of his faction attended a public rally organized by Musalia Mudavadi, one of the ODM-K presidential aspirants.

Over the weekend, Gideon was one of the speakers at the Uhuru Park where ODM and civil society were holding a rally to drum up support for minimum reforms.

In the opposition coalition ODM-Kenya, the headache caused by the competing interests of eight presidential candidates has graduated into a migraine. To stem the possibility of a fallout in the party, the party’s think-tank has come up with an ambitious power sharing structure where the ambitions of each of the candidates eyeing the party’s ticket will be fitted in.

The power sharing structure, which is similar to the one that is claimed to have been part of the MoU that was trashed by Kibaki when he came to power in 2002, includes a president, two vice presidents, a prime minister and three deputy prime ministers.

Yet before the candidates can settle on this formula, they have to go for nomination to determine the party’s presidential candidate. But the party is yet to agree on a nomination mode between consensus as was fronted by Raila Odinga and a delegate’s system as fronted by Kalonzo Musyoka, at the constituency level.

Although Janet Ongera, the party’s executive director said the party is on course in getting ready for the December elections, the party is yet to agree on a method of merging the party structures of the different constituency parties.

Party secretary general Prof. Anyang’ Nyong’o, who was said to be the only person who could speak on the party preparations for the elections, was said to be out of the country. His last attempt to harmonize constituent party structures backfired on him after he sent out a circular declaring that sitting MPs were the party leaders at the constituency level.

This circular was recently withdrawn after party parliamentary aspirants and leaders in the constituent parties went up in arms, claiming that Nyong’o was being dictatorial. But before it has harmonized its structures, the party, as it is today, cannot nominate the presidential, parliamentary, or civic candidates.

Things are not any rosier in Narc-Kenya. Apart from unfinished business on its grassroots elections, sharp rifts have emerged in the party with various factions now pulling in very different directions. Last week, the party postponed the long awaited grassroots elections to early next month.

In what seemed to be a strategy to downplay the impact of the rifts in the party, the party gave flimsy grounds as the cause for the postponement of the polls. Party interim officials explained that they were pushing the elections forward after realizing that the day that the elections were to begin at the polling station level fell on a school day.

An officer at the secretariat said that the party was putting final touches to the party elections that will begin on the third day of next month. But behind the scenes, the party was still trying to stem the growing discontent among the aspirants led by former Kanu die-hard Kimani Ngunjiri, who insist that the party constitution is skewed against them and instead favours sitting MPs.

It is the aspirants who prevailed on the party secretariat to postpone the meeting, citing the various issues that they needed dealt with before they could participate in the elections. One of the issues that the aspirants want changed is the party’s decision to have sitting MPs as the party leaders at the constituency level. The aspirants also want six aspirants from every constituency to have automatic membership at the national delegates convention, among a raft of other demands.

But the most fractitious rift in the fiercely pro-governemnt party is between Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, the interim chairman and Prof. George Saitoti, the minister for Education over the party’s chairmanship. The row between the two has taken a generational dimension where Kituyi is seen to represent the young turks in government while Saitoti is seen to represent the old guard.

In Kituyi’s camp are fierce government defenders including Amos Kimunya, the Minister for Finance, Mutua Katuku, the Minister for Water, Martha Karua, the minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, and Beth Mugo, Assistant Minister for Education, and Danson Mungatana, the Assistant Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

But there is a third faction which includes party moderates. In this faction are Prof Kivutha Kibwana, Kipruto Kirwa and Mwamgi Kiunjuri. This faction took Kituyi to task when he lambasted Saitoti for declaring his intentions to run for the party’s chairmanship. If Saitoti was a new comer in the party, the group led by Kibwana said, Kituyi too was a newcomer and should not run for the same post.

The party problem could multiply if Kibaki made a categorical statement that he would not vie for a second term on the party’s ticket. So far, the party’s popularity in certain sections of the country is predicated on the assumption that Kibaki will run for the second term on the party’s ticket.

With the old Narc now in a frenzy to reinvent itself and with Murungaru’s statement that Narc-Kenya should drop its arrogance and begin to build bridges with other pro-government parties, doubts are beginning to emerge on the chances of Kibaki defecting to the nascent party.

The picture becomes gloomier for the party when it emerges that, among the people pushing for a stronger Narc, is Alex Mureithi, the president’s nephew.

In spite of the rising political temperatures and the shaping of the battle lines between the protagonists, all the major political parties in both the opposition and the government would be caught unawares if a snap election were called today. In fact a spot check indicates that with only 10 months remaining to the elections, most of the parties are still bedeviled by internal wrangles, some of which have persisted for the last five years. Here is a sneak preview:

National Rainbow Coalition (Narc)

By the time we were going to press, Narc, or, what remains of the party on which Kibaki rode to power, was still trying to put together the different constituent parties that had come together in 2002 to form the coalition.

In the brainstorming meeting held on Wednesday at the exclusive La Mada Hotel in Karura Forest, delegates from the constituent parties, DP, NPK and Ford Kenya, were still trying to sort out differences between the constituent parties.

Alongside the three main coalition partners in the meeting, there were 10 other small parties represented in the La Mada meeting that had been organized for the ruling coalition by the Centre for Multi-party Democracy (CMD). One of the issues the party was struggling to sort out was whether Kibaki would be the party’s presidential candidate.

According to Charity Ngilu, who is registered as the party chairman, the party will definitely have a presidential candidate but it was not automatic that the party’s candidate would be Kibaki. On the other hand, DP has made it clear that its presidential candidate is Kibaki. In any case, it would be naïve to imagine that DP, whose registered chairman is Kibaki, will support any other candidate part from the president.

As for Ford Kenya, the party seems to have one leg in the ruling coalition and the other outside. Dr Noah Wekesa, Ford Kenya director of elections, and Moses Wetangula have both stated that the party will support Kibaki for a second term.

Speaking on the sidelines of the La Mada meeting, Wetangula said that he was sure that Kibaki was going to run on a Narc ticket. “I have personally asked him (Kibaki),” Wetangula said “and he has told me categorically that he was not elected on a Narc-Kenya ticket.” But Musikari Kombo, the Ford Kenya chairman, has made it public he will be a presidential candidate.

Apart from the presidential candidate, the party was yet to agree on the position of the secretary general. Although Fidelis Nguli is registered as the party’s secretary general, there have been moves to replace him with a more vibrant personality. Interestingly, this move was initiated three weeks ago by Ngilu to whom Nguli is a confidant.

A source on the going-ons in the party intimated that Ngilu has been pushing to have the position go to Wanagri Maathai, whose party, Mazingira Green, is a member of the coalition. But Ngilu’s move has faced stiff resistance from other parties. When the issue last came up, Alex Mureithi argued against Ngilu’s position, saying that Mazingira Green was a junior partner in the coalition.

Instead, Mureithi argued that the position should go to Noah Wekesa of Ford-Kenya since, among the other major partners of the coalition, DP had the presidency and NPK had the chairmanship.

Another sticky point for the ruling coalition is the issue of admitting new members to the coalition. This issue appears to have been complicated by the emergence of Narc-Kenya as a strong pro-government party. By Wednesday, Ngilu was adamant that Narc-Kenya, whose members she says are arrogant, would not be admitted into the coalition if and when it applied for membership.

Part of her fear is predicated on the perception that Kibaki is close to Narc-Kenya and if he were elected for a second term, he would fill the cabinet with MPs from Narc-Kenya.

On the other hand, Wetangula says the party should be admitted if it dropped its arrogance and contempt for other pro-government parties. The ruling coalition is still to agree on whether it will sponsor parliamentary candidates in all the constituencies or it will sponsor a presidential candidate and a running mate.