This is an opinion piece by the author and not necessarily shared by Bizna Digital Services

I will save you a long discourse on the role business plays in determining the political future of a nation and go straight to why businesses should not vote or support the CORD/NASA coalition.

1. No Business Agenda

Going by Deputy President William Ruto’s calculation, the CORD brigade has been in government for 105 years including the high offices of Vice President (Kalonzo Musyoka), Prime Minister (Raila Odinga), Ministry of Finance (Musalia Mudavadi) and Foreign Affairs (Moses Wetangula). In all these years, there is no tangible business agenda that they have executed or pushed individually or collectively. In fact, even in their previous manifestoes, there is feeble or no tangible proposals to support businesses in Kenya.

It would be a disaster for the business community to entrust their fate in the hands of people who are not even thinking about them.

2. Power Hungry

Besides the lack of business agenda, CORD/NASA is nothing but a bunch of bitter, power hungry old men. This is demonstrated by the fact that all they talk about is winning elections. For the last four years, they have not done anything as a coalition or even in the counties they control to demonstrate alternative leadership. They are embroiled in a deadly do or die game with each hoping to trick or subdue their colleagues to support them.

The principles energy and focus is thus directed to this one activity leaving little or no room to consolidate and sell their development agenda and least of all the plight of the business community.  Seeing that the CORD/NASA leaders and power hungry and self-serving leaders, the electorate has lost faith in them, jumping ship to Jubilee. What is left are diehard fans, sympathizers and anti-Jubilee voters. Will these groups deliver a presidential victory?

We’ll wait to see the outcome in August.

3. No Business History and Failed Enterprises

The CORD/NASA are not reputed to be astute business men unlike President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto who are associated with various successful ventures. While this is not the ultimate determinant for high office, it is critical to the business community.

For those who have attempted to engage in business, the result has been resounding failure as was the case with the Molasses plant that is associated with co-principle Raila Odinga. The business community dilemma is: Can we trust people who have no clue or who’ve demonstrated failure to run national business?

4. Fixation with 2013 Election Loss and Propaganda

It is sad that CORD lost the 2013 election when everything was in their favour. They gave it their all but still fell short by close to one million votes. Further, Raila Odinga has been running for president for 20 years. Because of the persistent failure and the bitter 2013 loss, he and his co-principles have become fixated with the 2013 loss because they got banished from government.

To deal with the loss, they have been singing a “election stealing” chorus so much so that that is all they talk about. They are even prophesying a 2017 stolen election after they hounded the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commissioners (IEBC) out of office. Of course, this was after orchestrating demonstrations that adversely affected businesses and led to looting of businesses in Nairobi.

Further, they have a well-organized propaganda machinery that aims at disrupting government operations but in the process harms business prospects for Kenyan businesses locally and internationally.

5. Corruption and Association with Illegal Business Activities

Like the Jubilee brigade, the CORD/NASA team has a litany of corruption scandals to their names from their days in government and in some cases, being mentioned in part of present day scandals. In most cases, the co-principles have not come out to clear their names in relation to the corruption allegations choosing instead to deal with them politically.

Another worrying issue is that some of the key leaders in CORD/NASA have been linked to illegal businesses or associated with persons or organizations known to engage in illegal businesses. CORD/NASA governors have also been grilled by government agencies over embezzlement and misuse of public funds and in most cases just like their Jubilee counter parts, they have rushed to court to halt, delay or frustrate the accountability processes.

If you agree or do not agree, please like and comment in the dialogue section below.

If you’d like to have your published, email [email protected]