The most interesting moment for me from the ANC convention last Sunday was when Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala had to go on the microphone after Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua to remind him that it was ANC welcoming UDA to its “big house”.
This is because Gachagua had just sounded too obvious that UDA was the big river and ANC was the small one joining it.
It felt like being in a wedding where the master of ceremonies has to remind the attendees who the groom was, because the rich sponsor who had funded the event was dancing too scandalously close to the bride.
I have no respect for political parties and politicians who have to remind people how big they are, because size isn’t a verbal function but a visual one.
In all honesty, the UDA allies attending the ANC event appeared surprised that their hosts wanted to paint the picture of seniority where there was and has never been any.
The second and third interesting moments were obviously the earthquakes of the day.
First, after years of castigating ODM chief Raila Odinga for disrespecting his Nasa colleagues by entering into the Handshake deal with President Uhuru Kenyatta without telling them, ANC leader Mudavadi did the exact thing with DP William Ruto without letting his Oka colleagues in on the deal.
To make it worse, they had to learn about it on the floor of the convention. Which brings me to the third item.
I can guarantee you that the humble chair of my village’s Rice Irrigation Committee had the intelligence that Ruto would be at the ANC gig at the Bomas of Kenya days before it happened.
It was rather shocking that senior politicians and party leaders such as Kalonzo Musyoka and Gideon Moi would learn of Ruto’s presence only on arriving at Bomas.
I don’t know what kind of political party one can run without an eye on the political spectrum, because with utmost respect, Kalonzo and Moi should know about “when it quacks like a duck” much more than my village mates.
The two painted themselves as naïve and malleable, characteristics no presidential candidate wants to hold just six months before a general election.
I am deliberately leaving out Senator Moses Wetang’ula, because for a man whose support base exists only in his fertile imagination, he wouldn’t walk out because his imagination was right there with him in the hall.
As for businessman Jimi Wanjigi, I will extend this page some modicum of respect by saying nothing.
Let us now move to the substance of the political marriage.
I am sure that for Azimio strategists, the waking nightmare was that Mudavadi might actually run for president and create a “shienyu ni shienyu” Luhya nationalism, even at a lower scale, complicating the mathematics for the Handshake coalition.
By aligning with Ruto, he unwittingly hands the Azimio people a New Year’s gift. He may still run, but doing so while clearly in partnership with the DP paints such a run as merely meant to lay the ground for a runoff, and not a serious stab. The voter wouldn’t fall for this gimmick.
The 2013 election results show Raila beat Mudavadi 303,120 to 144,962 in Kakamega, 185,419 to 107,868 in Bungoma, 189,161 to 18,608 in Busia, 92,035 to 24,762 in Trans Nzoia and nearly tied in Musalia’s home county of Vihiga at 82,426 for Mudavadi and 77,825 for Raila.
This is the only time both Mudavadi and Raila have been on the ballot.
The dynamics may have changed, but Mudavadi as Ruto’s running mate cannot claim to have more power to change the trend he set running for president.
There is no forecast or bookmaker hedging any bet on Ruto stepping down for Mudavadi, and as if to show who was boss, Ruto gave the programme lineup for their impeding joint rallies when he took to the podium at Bomas.
Sunday’s event hit the last nail on the Oka coalition.
It probably died much earlier, and those still hanging on it were mere morticians just trying to give it a more respectable sendoff.
The elephant in the room, however, was that Wiper and its leader Kalonzo were the real powerhouses of the nascent coalition.
This also makes them the biggest prize for the Azimio movement. Like a prized player coming in to fill a gap in midfield, I am sure Azimio’s pursuit of Kalonzo is about to hit an all-time high.
Mudavadi’s political marriage with Ruto now makes it even more urgent for Kalonzo to align with Raila in the impeding two-horse contest. Of all the Oka principals, only Kalonzo has a base worth talking of.
I hold that there is no compelling reason to believe that Raila’s support in Western will be depleted by Mudavadi’s move. Indeed, if you ask me, Raila’s position as a “sure bet” with new acceptance across the county makes it possible that he will in fact expand that support, especially if the Azimio parties empower their new partner DAP-K enough to make grassroots blitz.
In embracing Ruto as an alternative to Raila, whom he supported in 2017, Mudavadi has flatly failed to articulate the advantages Ruto has over Raila.
I’m sure that like me, many people keenly followed the speeches to hear what would be different with the new friends he was now introducing. Instead, the theme revolved around “betrayal”, a shallow chant that has now become every politician’s excuse for leaving their political formation.
It was quite telling that as the convention was going on, an old video of Garissa town MP accusing Mudavadi over the Goldenberg saga emerged, alongside several of Mudavadi himself in the past accusing Ruto a long catalogue of corruption cases.
If the day was meant to be one to showcase credibility and values, it fell flat, because the bride and groom at the political wedding couldn’t state one thing that had been wrong with their exes. At any rate, the fact that Mudavadi couldn’t reveal the identity of his new friends to his coalition partners in advance, already showed a lack of pride in his new friends, or their perceived manners.
In conclusion, I believe that the obsession with stopping Raila from the presidency has blinded the Amani party leader to the potential pitfalls in alliance building.
As with all senior politicians, there are obviously sharks around him who would rather hang onto his name and win their own seats, regardless of where he himself ultimately ends.
This could explain the strange phenomenon where his close associates like Senator Malala basically broke Oka by insisting that their leader would have to be the presidential candidate, yet are somehow okay being in an alliance with UDA, where the presidential candidate is known and has been campaigning for eons.
It is the typical face of a campaign lacking focus, ideology, strategy and belief. It is the kind of confusion for which Azimio strategists, on the other side, should toast to the good health of their own leader, because the supposed earthquake delivered one more fatal political blow to a rival. And it was effortless.
