ODM unveils elaborate list of party flagbearer qualifications
MAMBO MATATA
One of Kenya’s biggest and most vibrant parties, the Orange Democratic Movement, has announced that it is looking for a presidential candidate who will finally take the party to State House after 15 years of failed attempts.
Because it does not want to leave anything to chance this time round, the party has reportedly come up with an elaborate list of qualifications that will produce a surefire winner.
The requirements will also ensure people from all walks of life stand a chance of becoming the candidate in line with the party’s famed democratic ideals.
According to impeachable sources, the ideal candidate should not be a spring chicken but must have been around for at least “three score and ten”, as the good book would put it to mean 70 years old.
Six more years on earth would be an added advantage.
This requirement, the party says, is designed to lock out wet-behind-ears jokers who would not be taken seriously by the voters and who would not know the first thing about how to run a country.
It would also be in line with international best practices, seeing that the world’s greatest democracy, the US, has just replaced a 74-year-old man with an even more wise and wizened 78-year-old grandpa at the White House.
Closer home, Uganda has rejected a 38-year-old fellow and affirmed a 76-year-old battle-hardened, gun-toting State House veteran, which goes to prove the adage old is gold.
Another mandatory requirement for those wishing to be the Orange party’s 2022 flagbearer is that you must have attended a German university or college and have at least a smattering of the German language.
Sources say being a holder of an engineering qualification of some sort would stand the applicant in good stead.
“Kenya has had enough of teachers, economists and political scientists at the top.
We cannot also risk the country in the hands of lying lawyers, marauding zoologists or such funny characters and charlatans. Kenya sorely needs an engineer who can fix things,” said the source who is familiar with the party’s thinking.
Since running for president is not for the fainthearted, the party is reportedly looking for someone who has been on the ballot for not less than four times.
Having lost — or alleged to have lost — in all the four contests would be a huge advantage.
“The party recognises that electing ballot veterans and seasoned election losers is a growing trend globally.
Look at Biden in the US, Nana Akufo-Addo in Ghana and most importantly Seychelles’ Wavel Ramkalawan who finally won the presidency after losing a record six times,” said a source close to the party’s director of elections’ office.
As a measure of courage and endurance, the ideal candidate must also know a thing or two about Kenya’s prisons, and not as a prison warder or commissioner.
To qualify, you must have served time in Kenya’s infamous prisons for at least six years and, for maximum experience and effect, in more than three different detention facilities.
If you were detained without trial, why, you are just what the doctor ordered for the party!
For hobbies, the ODM presidential candidate applicant must be a serious football fan who regularly veers off the subject during political rallies to deliver exhilarating football commentary that drives the crowd wild with ecstasy.
And at their spare time, the candidate must love telling riddles and be a dancer of note.
With these quite remarkable list of qualifications, the party hopes to get itself an exceptional, one-in-a-million, once-in-a-century candidate who will give the competition a run for their money in next year’s election. – [email protected]
