Point One

She was tapped for the presidential race exactly 107 days before election day. Within the available time, she is to alchemise a party in disarray into a united and potent force, clinch the nomination that momentarily seemed a toss, redirect the party’s mood from despondent anticipation of defeat to resurgent pursuit of victory, upend a long headstart of victory run by Republican nominee Donald Trump, plus overawe historical prejudices about gender and race. That was the task slate thrust on United States Vice President Kamala Harris over the past week; and so far, she’s maximised the moment. She transformed into the presumptive Democratic nominee without having run a primary, and has rattled the very core of Trump’s candidacy. Harris entered the race after 81-year-old President Joe Biden bowed to pressure and dropped his bid for re-election. No sitting American president reportedly ever dropped out of a race so late in the election cycle. Biden was Democrats’ presumptive nominee for th...

Short of a miraculous upset, Donald Trump is on a rollercoaster back into power as President of the United States (POTUS). Not only has he been formally coronated flagbearer in the November elections by Republicans, he holds the Grand Old Party (GOP) in iron subjection and leverages opportunities to bestride national attention. His obstacle, the Democrats as arrow-headed by incumbent President Joe Biden’s campaign, are  in utter disarray and profoundly backfooted. Trump and his supporters already smell victory for his Make America Great Again (MAGA) comeback and are exulting in exuberant anticipation. The four-day Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last week was the Don’s party without any rain. The event was dogmatically Trumpist and there wasn’t any speaker, theme or attendee that didn’t reflect what he wanted. His escape a few days earlier from an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, enhanced his indomitable aura and solidified his dominance of the ...

 When he swept to power in an against-the-odds election some two years ago, Kenyan President William Ruto touted himself as “hustler-in-chief.” It was a tag he adopted in identification with the struggling masses of his country and in deliberate distinction, apparently, from the privileged minority.  It would seem Kenyan masses can’t recognise him as what he purported and are up in arms. Ruto was vice-president for 10 years under ex-President Uhuru Kenyatta and should have been the establishment candidate in the August 2022 poll. He, however, claimed he was sidelined from decision-making in the Kenyatta era and ran as an outsider against the power of incumbency that was pitched in favour of veteran contender Raila Odinga. He ran on the platform of a nascent party against Odinga’s platform that had rallied Kenyatta’s ruling party, among others, into a coalition. Ruto framed the contest as between “hustlers” – poor and hard-working Kenyans (his party’s symbol was a wheelbarrow) ...