How Gachagua won Ol Kalou by-election and lost it the same day

The moment of victory is often the moment of greatest peril. In the heat of victory, arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you had aimed for; and by going too far, you make more enemies than you defeat. Do not allow success to go to your head-Robert Greene, 48 Laws of Power.

World over, great leaders always have two speeches ready before going into any political duel-a concession speech in which they plan to bow out gracefully with their heads held high, and a victory speech, in which they plan to step forward with humility.

But in public celebrations of the largely overrated Ol Kalou by-election, Geoffrey Rigathi Gachagua and his Democracy for Citizens Party failed at their moment of glory. In the end, Mr Gachagua and his team projected the image of a tribal chiefs dancing beside the body of one of their own.

It did not help matters that Gachagua chose to casually announce the number of casualties from the political duel, which robbed the election victory of its thunder, reducing it to a Pyrrhic one.

More importantly, the way he presented those grim statistics did not show a man genuinely pained by the loss of life or the alleged rape of women. His body language instead conveyed the image of a businessman presenting his company's year-end profit-and-loss statement.

Great generals, upon emerging victorious from war, do not step onto the podium merely to announce the number of men they lost as statistics. Instead, they use the moment to honour them as heroes and pay tribute to their sacrifices.

They dedicate victory to those who paid the ultimate price, not to themselves, their loyalists or their tribes. They do not transform a victory speech into a funeral oration or a lamentation. Indeed, another principle in ‘The 48 Laws of Power’ advises victorious leaders to make their triumph appear effortless.

For a man struggling to shed the label of tribal politics, Gachagua's handling of the Ol Kalou victory only reinforced that perception in the public mind. To hail the Ol Kalou victory as a victory for the Kikuyu community was a strategic mistake, especially when he did so while flanked by some of his lieutenants, such as Cleophas Malala, who does not even come from the Mt Kenya region.

By appearing to claim ownership of the victory, both personally and on behalf of "the community," Gachagua squandered an opportunity to project himself as a national leader. For the sake of optics, it might have been wiser to let someone far removed from Mt Kenya deliver the victory speech.

Perhaps Gachagua should have attributed the win to the so-called United Opposition, even if he believed it had contributed little to the Ol Kalou outcome. Better still, the newly elected MP should have been publicly celebrated, not at Gachagua's Wamunyoro home—which is increasingly becoming indistinguishable from DCP headquarters, but against the backdrop of the United Opposition.

That would have elevated what is currently perceived as Gachagua's personal triumph into a victory for the broader opposition.

Alternatively, Gachagua could simply have stepped back and allowed the newly elected MP to do most of the talking, flanked not by DCP's "tribal warriors" but by a broader national political coalition.

As things stand, many Kenyans can hardly be blamed for viewing the newly elected Ol Kalou MP as little more than Gachagua's political protégé, or, at best, the newly anointed son of a tribal chief somewhere in Mt Kenya.

As for President Ruto's side, the less said about the debacle his lieutenants created in Ol Kalou, the better. That group of overzealous political operatives, whose brazen impunity, swagger and "mta-do?" attitude have steadily undermined Ruto’s chances of re-election, continues to resemble Eli's sons in the Bible: Spoiled men whose arrogance and impunity ultimately brought ruin upon their father.

Ultimately, Ruto lost Ol Kalou for the very reason Gachagua risks losing future electoral contests: Neither man appears to use victory as an opportunity to build bridges. Instead, both seem inclined to use victory as an occasion to gloat.

- Mr Muchiri is a media and public communications professional