I am excited because I know Jubilee will win and they are serious about this Manifesto. They would still win without it. But I think they want to go down in history as the most trans-formative regime in Kenya. Sitting before those ICC judges really shocked the hell out of them and they realized they needed to live for something bigger.
I like their business minded approach, their zen-like discipline, their execution is near perfect - that is how to deliver SGR 2yrs ahead of schedule. Unlike you or Kadame I am not big on justice/peace/consitutionalism - I am big on kagame type of reforms - I don't care about historical injustice - but I care if everyone can get be given a titledeed to borrow loan with or sell - I don't care so much about big fish corruption (mega deals) - I care about small time corruption where everyone has to pay 100bob to get gov services - I think Jubilee has focused on those - eliminating red-tape, digitizing the whole shit out of it - and without even doing anything about graft - it disappears and gok collect more revenue now. I don't care about 10B SGR loan (maybe 1B or more of it's is facilitation fee to Wanjigis)..I care that every kenyan will now travel at 700shs to Mombasa on half the time and the same benefits on containners... What is 1Busd compared to a multiplier like that?
In short I care about reforms that really affect me and you. I think Jubilee have the brains. Uhuru is damn brilliant. Ruto is a genius. I think they understand what need to be fixed. You can talk all day about corruption...but if you reduce the amount of time it take for container to get malaba from 18 days to 5 days - using simple measures like forcing banks to operate 24-7 - those are reforms that work.
Obviously you care about democracy or new constitution or historical injustices or truth & reconciliation - frankly I don't give a damn - give every kenyan a tarmac road few meters from their home - give every kenyan electricity - give every kenya rail transport that work - give every kenyan a title deed - give every kenyan water - those are the stuff that matters.
China never had democracy and they grew out of poverty. The same is true for many countries that focused on the the really important things..the bread & butter. The job of GoK is to render gov services..NOT to wrestle with complicated emotional stuff nobody can ever solve...like terrorism or historical injustice or reclaim mau complex...give us more well paid police..give us more security cameras...give us more magistrates and courts...those are stuff that work.
I wish political competition can shift to Jubiliesque kind of issue..and we leave Raila hangovers to the past...and we can start debating how we can say move our road network from 15% tarmac to something like 90% tarmac.... let people compete on how we cancoverage of sewage & sanitation..let talk the numbers there and how much you want to improve them...talk about water, internet/broabband, banking (access is now dealt with - nearly everyone has a bank account now...now it's question cheap credit for everyone)
Pundit, I do not know why you stress too much over these manifestos. Even in the so called advanced Democracy like the US, nobody remembers the political party platforms after the conventions. Who cares. Even by your own standards, the MOAS is the only thing that should matter. Other than the laptop computers that stuck with me, I do not remember the Jubilee manifesto of 2013. Now they are back with a new one which will go to dust as soon as the elections are over. Its a good thing to do but really?