The appointment of Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka as President Uhuru Kenyatta’s regional peace envoy is the last nail in the country’s splintered opposition coffin.
The appointment is also likely to shift the political landscape ahead of the 2022 General Election.
On October 20, the African Union appointed ODM chief Raila Odinga as its High Representative for Infrastructure, and he bowed out of Kenyan succession politics for now.
With their continental activities requiring frequent travels, Kalonzo and nominal Nasa chief Raila, will be missing from the early campaign rough and tumble.
Many argue that their absence could hand Deputy President William Ruto, who has already started frenetic countrywide tours, an even bigger head-start as he will have time to raid opposition strongholds in the absence of opposition heavyweights.
Some say the opposition's obituary is already being written.
Before Kalonzo's appointment, Raila's AU appointment had already thrown the opposition movement into disarray.
While Raila’s appointment had already spelled trouble for the opposition, Kalonzo sealed it last week when he accepted Uhuru’s appointment as the new head of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) on peace in South Sudan.
As the face of opposition politics for decades, Raila had been the heartbeat of the opposition, constantly and consistently keeping the ruling party on its toes through vigilance, criticism of its policies and programmes as well as street action.
The former Prime Minister in President Mwai Kibaki’s 2008-2013 Grand Coalition government has been the cornerstone of the opposition and his vibrancy and acumen has provided its inspiration and its blue.
Raila was Jubilee’s fiercest critic during President Kenyatta’s first term in office but with the handshake between the two rivals on March 9, the Building Bridges initiative and the recent AU appointment, President Kenyatta can expect an easy ride in his final term.
Raila has hammered home the Eurobond questions, the NYS scandal and land grabbing and has exposed mega corruption in the Jubilee administration. Thus, the one-time "People's President" has until recently always been considered the "People's Watchdog".
Raila was charged with treason and imprisoned without trial for six years; he was arrested several times for opposition despotism and one-party rule..
But since he agreed to cohabit with the government, many Kenyans have raised concerns that the the man known as the opposition 'enigma' never never speaks out about the ills in government, including imposition of the VAT levy on petroleum products and the maize and fertiliser scandals.
While President Uhuru Kenyatta scored big in stabilising the political landscape by tapping Raila, the move also cost pain to
millions of Kenyans already reeling from the high cost of living and the high commodity prices since Jubilee took office. With more taxes on the way.
The huge vacuum caused by Raila and Kalonzo's absence has been viewed as a dangerous loophole in the development of Kenya's fledgling democracy.
Many also argue the Kalonzo-Raila pacts with Uhuru would have far-reaching consequences as the government is expected to easily pile more taxes on Kenyans.
Nasa — which consists of Raila’s ODM party, Kalonzo’s Wiper, Ford Kenya led by Moses Wetang'ula and Amani National Congress of Musalia Mudavadi
— formed the main opposition movement.
However, Raila and Kalonzo’s appointments have shaken the core of the outfit, leaving it exposed and unable to maintain a thorough oversight of the Jubilee administration.
The Orange Democratic Movement is Kenya's second-largest party, with 76 MPs. after the ruling Jubilee Party which has 171 lawmakers in the 349-member National Assembly.
The Wiper Party has 23 MPs, making it the second-largest opposition outfit after ODM, while Wetang'ula’s Ford Kenya has 13 MPs and Mudavadi's ANC has 14 MPs.
A strong opposition Parliament had given Jubilee sleepless nights. The Nasa alliance had a combined strength of at least127, the NASA coalition had a combined strength of at least 127 MPs — well above the one-third threshold required to table impeachment motions against Cabinet secretaries
While Raila has vehemently dismissed suggestions that his handshake and appointment mean that he has joined government, political analysts and governance experts say the opposition has been dealt a fatal blow.
“The opposition in Kenya is clinically dead,” governance expert Javas Bigambo told the Star.
He argues that while ANC's Mudavadi now claims to be the face of the opposition," it would be of no use to have the face when you are brain-dead ...While some vital organs in the body of the opposition could be alive and functioning, it is brain-dead,” he said.
Bigambo said Raila's extending his hand of brotherhood to Uhuru had dealt a death blow to all opposition politics.
Following concerns by civil society and governance experts that Raila’s new role robs him of the leverage to oversight the executive, the former Prime Minister on Thursday denied he had not joined Uhuru's administration.
“This whole hullabaloo that the opposition is dead is a media creation,” Raila said after meeting Embu political leaders. “I have not joined the government. There is nothing stopping me from criticising the government. We only have a working arrangement.”
The opposition chief explained that his appointment should be viewed within the larger context of Kenya's efforts to broker nationwide healing and reconciliation, and not through a narrow political prism.
“We all agreed we were coming from a very difficult situation which required mediation and that's what we have done with the Building Bridges initiative, the founding document. There is nothing [saying' that I have joined government,” said the ex-PM.
Mudavadi, a former vice president in President Daniel Moi’s Kanu government has come out guns blazing, trying to position himself as the country’s main opposition leader.
However, many argue that the void left by Raila is too vast to be filled by the man seeking a second stab at the presidency in 2022.
Positioning himself as the alternative voice for ‘deserted’ opposition supporters, Mudavadi has accused Raila and Kalonzo of abandoning their followers in their greatest hour of need by agreeing to cohabit with the establishment.
“I therefore don’t believe the opposition must cease to exist. You cannot be in government and in opposition at the same time. It’s deceitful and unconvincing,”
Musalia said of Raila's and Kalonzo's government appointments.
Mudavadi claimed that after every election year, winners extend olive branches to and dangle carrots before their critics to persuade them to join government.
He says that in 2013, he was offered a similar chance but politely declined.
“Principle overrode everything. I had been in competition with the President for the position he was using to offer me employment. Taking up such an appointment would have made nonsense of my 2013 presidential bid, and even future bids,” he said.
Mudavadi said despite the moves by Kalonzo and Raila, the remaining leaders in Nasa
himself and Wetang'ula — must continue to monitor and check government.
“Being in opposition is the legitimate and constitutional assignment of Nasa. Our job is to help keep a balance of power, provide checks and balances, sustain democracy and maintain the constitutional requirement of Kenya as a multiparty state,” he said in an interview with a local newspaper.
“To abdicate that honourable responsibility is to betray the millions who voted for Nasa. It would be difficult to convince them that you can achieve what you told them that you stand for by joining to serve your erstwhile opponent.”
Kiminini MP and National Assembly deputy Minority Whip Chris Wamalwa says appointment of the two leaders doesn’t mean the opposition is dead.
“We are only cooperating on matters about public good … but where there are issues that affect the common mwananchi…we are there to point them out,” he said.
“Anyone thinking these appointments mean our two leaders will not play a bigger role ...
I think that person is misguided,” noted Godfrey Osotsi, nominated MP.
Civil society groups have also argued that acceptance of appointments of the duo means that they had effectively joined government and would abandon Kenyans to the guillotine of an ruthless Jubilee administration.
Ndung’u Wainaina, executive director of the International Center for Policy and Conflict, said that without a vibrant opposition voice, civil society may find it difficult to operate in environment in which government continues to trample on their rights.
“Civil society groups have been facing increasing infringement on their freedom of association, assembly and expression. It is becoming dangerous to challenge power, sometimes doing so results in reprisals. This has limited the work of civil society groups,” he told the Star.
In order to hold government to account, Wainaina said the civil society groups must rebuild, recast themselves differently and find new ways of connecting with the public.
Former Machakos senator Johnson Muthama has poured cold water in Kalonzo’s decision to take the government job without clarifying to his supporters what to expect.
“Everyone has begun the race and after running like 2,500 metres, we are seeing Kalonzo moving in the opposite direction,” he said.
But Makueni MP Dan Maanzo said, however, that Kalonzo’s appointment elevates him to regional leadership.
“There’s no bigger campaign than that….[which] endears him to Kenyans because there are Kenyans who work in Southern Sudan,” he said.
Already former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has declared his exit from 2022 succession politics following his AU appointment.
In a statement by his spokesman on November 5, Raila said, “to provide the required leadership in this critical area [infrastructure], and in line with his previous pronouncements, Raila Odinga wishes to reiterate that he will not engage in Kenya’s succession politics ahead of 2022.”