OMWENGA: Chances, challenges ahead for Matiang’i in his presidential quest

It has only been six months since former Super CS Fred Matiang’i announced he had accepted the people’s call to run for president in 2027.

It is a long way to August 2027 and that means like any serious presidential candidate, he must brace himself for combat while not losing sight and grabbing low hanging fruit to eat along the way.

Combat is the right verb because running for president is akin to going to war and the two have many parallels. One is of course money. As in war, running for president requires a lot of money.

This is a challenge for any presidential candidate who is not relying on stolen money. Matiang’i has not stolen money from anyone so count that as his first challenge. However, what he lacks in money, he has plenty in goodwill among the masses who already see him as their saviour.

Among those masses are the monied who are waiting on the sideline to see how he does his thing, and especially how he navigates through the mines ahead to when it becomes clear the rest of the opposition will rally behind him or not. Put more accurately, when it becomes clear whether either or both former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka rally behind him or not.

What is interesting is most if not all of these monied wouldn’t care less whether one or both of these leaders fall behind Matiang’i because they know the former CS is their man no matter what.

This is not a position held in a vacuum but is informed by both data and history that points to Matiang’i being the only candidate who can easily and effectively make Wantam a reality.

This may beg the question: why would these monied wait until when things clear more to financially support Matiang’i and the answer is simple. Because they want to make sure the former CS proves he is his own man and not merely retired President Uhuru Kenyatta’s project as it is often illogically claimed.

Part of proving this is spending the millions of his own money one must spend in a day before he or she gets help from others, including those monied waiting to see if he does that and thus far he is.

The second warlike phenomenon Matiang’i faces is an unleashing of state machinery to try and knock him off the stage but even before that, he already is and must continue to carefully navigate around the mines within the opposition.

Yes, thus far the opposition is united and often all its key leaders are seen together laughing and enjoying each other’s company but make no mistake about it, this is a campaign and off camera and behind the scenes, each on his or her own to plot and plan how to have self-interests met.

It is in that vain that Ruto has not gone full throttle with state machinery because he and his minions are hoping the opposition can attack or at least try to attack and politically damage Matiang’i.

However, that is not happening and will not happen because there is nothing to attack the former CS with. To be sure, some and including state-sponsored bloggers, did try to shout about River Yala and Ruaraka but all fell on deaf ears because there is nothing there and the Jubilee presidential candidate himself has done a great job of making this the non-issue it is.

That said, we know once Jubilee notifies IEBC Matiang’i as their presidential candidate, state propaganda and smear machinery will go into high gear but here is where they’ll be facing a candidate like none faced by their predecessors. The former CS is clean like cotton wool as Baba once aptly described him on matters corruption.

Not only that, another invaluable thing Matiang’i also has, unlike anyone before, is widespread and growing goodwill among quiet, organic supporters.

To his insurmountable advantage, this presents a grand opportunity for him to tap into more, help grow it and by election time it will be the Tsunami Baba used to enjoy except this time the Tsunami will propel Matiang’i to State House as our sixth president, God willing.