Yesterday,
Kenyan media houses announced that there will be at least 3 presidential
debates before next year's general elections. The debates will bring together
over 10 presidential candidates, and if the country goes for a re run, a fourth
debate will be held for the two candidates in the race. The first of these will
be held on November 26th, and will be aired by a total of 8 TV stations and 32
radio stations. The other two debates will be held on 14th January 2013
and 11th February 2013.
Reportedly,
Citizen TV's Julie Gichuru and NTV's Linus Kaikai will moderate the live
debates. This revelation did not go down well with many people who have varied
reasons why the two should not be the moderators. Some reasons given as to why
the two should not moderate are previous performance on high profile assignment
and partisan accusations. Linus Kaikai is accused of having grossly
underperformed when he got a chance to interview Uganda President Yoweri
Museveni, while Julie Gichuru is said to have been intimidated by Uhuru's
presence on Sunday Live. It is also believed that Julie Gichuru had been
promised the government spokesperson job by ODM in 2007, while Linus Kaikai had
plans to contest a parliamentary seat on a PNU ticket the same year, before
dropping those ambitions. The latter is also accused of being plain boring.
On
social media, people were busy coming up with names of alternatives they saw as
impartial and not easily intimidated.
Some
of the names floated included: John Sibi Okumu, famous for his time at 'Zain
Africa Challenge',Kathleen Openda Mvati, Jeff Koinange, James Smart and
Ahmednasir Abdullahi - Nairobi Law Monthly.
Those
vocal against Julie Gichuru and Linus Kaikai included blogger Dennis Itumbi,
Robert Alai and Chris Kirubi. Even Jeff Koinange had his preferred choice and
it was not either of the two.
