By Arnold Maliba
A section of the \u201cMukuru Kwa Zuckerberg\u201d political smart money brigade has been busy churning out acres of online trolling, convinced that Senator Edwin Sifuna\u2019s sustained appeal against his controversial removal is merely a desperate attempt to crawl back into ODM\u2019s good books or cling onto the Secretary-General\u2019s office.
That, however, is a rather shallow reading of Kenyan politics.
Edwin Sifuna understands politics. More importantly, he understands ODM better than most.
He knows very well that in politics, some bridges once burnt can never be rebuilt. Certain relationships within ODM have deteriorated beyond repair and there are realities within the party that cannot simply be reset like factory settings. So the question then becomes: why pursue the appeal?
The answer is simple \u2014 politics is not always about winning a case. Sometimes, it is about controlling the narrative.
Sifuna\u2019s appeal is not merely a legal process. It is political theatre: deliberate, calculated and highly
By moving to challenge the decision, he keeps the controversy alive. He forces ODM to continuously defend its actions within the framework of the law. He buys himself political time. He ensures his name remains firmly in the headlines. What could have been a one-day story now becomes a prolonged political conversation dominating the public space.
Every extra day the matter remains unresolved is another day Sifuna occupies the national political stage while his opponents remain trapped in a defensive position.
This is not simply a courtroom contest.
It is a battle for legitimacy. A battle for sympathy. A battle for leverage.
In this game, the law becomes the stage. The tribunal becomes the theatre. Public opinion becomes the audience.
Whether Sifuna ultimately wins or loses may not even be the primary objective. By the time the curtain finally falls, he may already have extracted every ounce of political capital the process was designed to generate.
That is how politics is played.
While the loudest voices on social media are busy analysing emotions and trading insults, the politicians involved are quietly calculating power.
And in politics, power \u2014 not sentiment \u2014 is always the real currency.
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By Arnold MalibaA section of the \u201cMukuru Kwa Zuckerberg\u201d political smart money brigade has been busy churning out acres of online trolling, convinced that Senator Edwin Sifuna\u2019s sustained appeal against his controversial removal is merely a desperate attempt to crawl back into ODM\u2019s good books or cling onto the Secretary-General\u2019s office.That, however, is a rather …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":19421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19418"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19422,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19418\/revisions\/19422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goodmorningkenya.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}