GEMA and the Bid to Rejuvenate Kanu

The dominant faction moved quickly to preserve its access to the president and its influence over policy, using a variety of political tactics, including the expansion of its financial base to facilitate efforts to lure marginal "rebels" from J.M.'s coalition, capture of critical "gatekeeping" positions in the administration, and a bid to strengthen the party in ways that would potentially decrease the power of rival groups. Its leaders developed these responses with some presidential toleration but not with full presidential support. Kenyatta continued to pursue an independent strategy of accommodation until illness and the growing power of the Family in government removed control from his hands.

The redistribution of resources toward Rift Valley groups did not appeal to Family leaders, who stood to lose benefits and status. The group decided to fight back by strengthening the Kiambu-based ethnic welfare society, the Gikuyu, Embu, and Meru Association (GEMA), mobilizing resources to generate a tighter organization and signal its bargaining power, always under the guise of "cultural preservation." In February 1973, Dr. Njoroge Mungai, the foreign minister and a nephew of Kenyatta's, launched the first GEMA-sponsored social event in Nairobi. Shortly thereafter, GEMA also inaugurated activities in parts of the country where it had never done so before, using its significant and growing financial base as a source of funds for promoting the fortunes of potential supporters throughout the country.

However much GEMA's leaders protested that the organization was not a political body, its actions often crossed into that sphere. For example, in December 1973, GEMA's Nyeri Branch asked the government to divide Nyeri District into eight parliamentary constituencies instead of the four that then existed, some of which were controlled by opponents of the Family. And in 1974, the Family pitted Peter Ndirangu Nderi, a relative of the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, against the Nyeri MP Waweru Kanja and lost by a very narrow margin. Perception that GEMA had become an ethnically based political organization with substantial leverage was reflected in J. M. Kariuki's statement in February 1974 that the "ten years of independence have neither been great nor truly independence. . . . The inauguration and strength-

ening of such bodies as GEMA, Luo Union, and the New Akamba Union in my view is the most retrogressive step we have ever taken, and constitutes a tragedy in terms of our own advance toward nationhood."^[61]

Rejuvenating KANU and its nationalist ideology became one of the main planks in GEMA's strategy. The push for a stronger party started in mid 1972, at the same time that Kariuki and Seroney began to criticize top officials for constraining political association. An assistant minister for works said that Kenya would be "doomed to failure" if KANU did not reorganize to protect the country from those who launched "unwarranted attacks" against the vice president and senior officials.^[62] Inaugurating a new recruitment drive in mid 1972, the party's organizing secretary denounced leaders who were "cleverly and cunningly dishing out national seats on a provincial basis and tribal affiliations."^[63] William Odongo Omamo, Luo patriarch Oginga Odinga's rival in Siaya, joined the predominantly Kikuyu-inspired push for reorganization in March 1973, in "a determined bid to reawaken the Nyanza people in defence of party democracy."^[64] Omamo's support was repaid by the participation of another central Kiambu Family figure, Njoroge Mungai, in a harambee meeting at Ukwala, Siaya, in the Luo country of Nyanza on May 6, 1973.

As 1973 progressed, the KANU reorganization leaders took the first steps toward using the party as a means of political control. In April, Minister of Defence James Gichuru and the Central Province KANU chairman, James Njiru, both GEMA members, violated an unwritten rule in Kenya that during visits by politicians or public officials to constituencies the sitting MP for the area must also be present. The two men held a KANU meeting in Nyandarua, Kariuki's home territory, in his absence. The MP for Laikipia West introduced Gichuru with the words: "The party is much alive and we all know it. Perhaps those who suggest that the party is dead are not politically alive." According to the Daily Nation, Njiru boasted: "Just as KANU had managed to crush other parties such as KADU, APP (the African People's Party), and KPU, so it would crush 'any other party these people may be trying to form.'"^[65]

A month later, at a KANU meeting in Nakuru District, Gichuru expressed his concern over the attacks of a Rift Valley coalition member, Martin Shikuku, on senior government officials. Those attending the meeting promptly resolved: "Anyone who continues to abuse or level unwarranted charges against President Kenyatta, Mr. Mbiyu Koinange,

or Mr. James Gichuru will be dealt with 'mercilessly.'" Gichuru went on to criticize those who preached "sectionalism and regionalism," although, apparently unaware of any inconsistency, he concluded by calling on the wananchi, or common people, to join GEMA, "which he described as a unifying factor among the Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru people."^[66]

The bid to strengthen KANU was short-lived and unsuccessful, however, because of suspicion that it was a Kiambu effort to disguise privilege through appeals to nationalism and to meritocratic considerations. Where GEMA's boundaries ended and those of the KANU reorganization group began was unclear. Most of the meetings took place in Central Province, and many of the early speeches urging party reorganization were delivered by Gichuru.^[67] Indeed, the first conference to consider reorganization strategy was announced not by national-level party officials but by the KANU executive officer for Central Province. Held in Nyeri township, the meeting was chaired by Gichuru, KANU's vice president in Central Province. Although the 300 delegates and observers came from all parts of Kenya, the choice of speakers was peculiarly unrepresentative. The list, when announced, included Minister for Foreign Affairs Mungai, Minister for State Mbiyu Koinange, and an array of other Kikuyu speakers, including Margaret Kenyatta.^[68] Most Luo leaders, save Odongo Omamo, appeared reticent to extend support, despite their relative lack of involvement in the Rift Valley opposition and their historical role as part of the KANU alliance against a "majimboist," federalist system.

Kenyatta did not come out as a public spokesman for party revitalization, although neither did he did express disagreement with those who argued for a stronger, de jure single-party system. In the end, the prospect that Central Province sectional interests would capture the effort to define nationalism made the party a poor vehicle for managing political conflict, as Kenyatta appeared to realize. Eventually, GEMA retreated. In the early months of 1974, the organization's leaders issued frequent protests that they were not involved in party politics, in response to complaints that the reverse was true.