There is absolutely no basis for one to claim that Raila Odinga’s preference for the Cord presidential ticket is Musalia Mudavadi. As far as I know, Raila's preference is Raila Odinga. And this is because, just like everyone else, he understands that he is the best bet for this country.
As far as I know, there has been no offer extended to Musalia to be the Cord flagbearer, although I am aware that discussions are ongoing to build a broad-based coalition of like-minded leaders in order to increase the certainty of removing this corrupt regime from power in 2017.
Like-minded here means people who understand there will be no country to speak of if the looting and myriad other vices of the Jubilee government persist beyond 2017, and Musalia is one such leader, going by his own pronouncements on the subject.
In fact, to me, it is disheartening that the media has swallowed whole this bone thrown at them by agents of this regime on Musalia’s “Cord candidature”.
We should not forget that Musalia wasn’t “good enough” to fly the Jubilee flag in 2013, yet those who rejected him now prescribe him as the best bet for Cord.
This is plain ridiculous. In my view, we should be talking about which policies and ideas and who personifies those policies and ideas to win the 2017 election and not which lineups and combinations.
This false narrative of Raila's “preference for Musalia” is of course meant to cause discomfort amongst the former PM’s co-principals in Cord and maybe coax them into leaving the coalition.
Jubilee is very uncomfortable with the fact that only Cord has the flagbearer’s position to negotiate with, because theirs, as we have been told, is not up for discussion till 2032!
They want that window closed sooner rather than later to be in a position to leverage their other advantages on some of these leaders.
If indeed the math points to a Luhya candidate as the only way to beat Jubilee, then Cord is in luck because it already has a Luhya leader with wide influence within the community in the name and style of Moses Masika Wetang’ula.
In the meantime, it would be advisable to await the report of the special committee put together by the Cord leadership to ascertain who is most desirable as the flagbearer in 2017!
Edwin Sifuna is an advocate of the High Court and chairman of the ODM
national appeals tribunal.