ODM national chairman John Mbadi opens up in an interview with the Star on what might work or derail ODM leader Raila Odinga’s march to State House.
The National Assembly Minority leader also explains why the former Prime Minister must urgently woo Wiper leader Kalonzo Musoka to his Azimio side in the succession perceived to be a two-horse race between Raila and Deputy President William Ruto.
In an exclusive interview with Star reporter Luke Awich, the Suba South lawmaker delved into the impossibility of joint Azimio nominations and the "teething problems" in the national presidential campaigns.
What are some of Raila's advantages and problems he has not faced before?
Raila Odinga has contested the presidency four times; this is his fifth time. In the first one in 1997 he did not have much chance; the probability was a bit low. He was just getting into the political arena and not widely known.
Then 2007 was one of the best chances he ever had. In 2013 and 2017, we are all aware of what happened.
This time he has a very good chance to become the fifth president and it's going to be his fifth attempt, quite a coincidence.
A big first-time advantage, which he didn't have before, is that there is more clarity on who Raila Odinga is
Raila has been in this game for long, people have understood him and know what he's capable and not capable of doing.
There have been some mysteries around him that have been demystified. Some regions that didn't give him a chance at all are now listening to him and some are changing their perceptions.
People have realised and it has been proved that the picture painted of the militant Raila is wrong.
Some people who demonized him are now admitting they demonised him for their own survival.
The advantage Raila has ow is that people are understanding him better.
His age is also working for him because it's not credible that at his age Raila would be power hungry or hungry for wealth.
Power is not his goal, nor is amassing wealth. He is someone who wants to leave a legacy.
He is experienced in this political game. Of course people would say he has slowed a bit. Naturally, when you're older, you're not the same as you were yesterday.
Age to Raila comes as an advantage and so is his experience.
Your adversaries say Raila is a state project and wouldn't do much for ordinary Kenyans but will protect a few tycoons. Is Raila 'the system's' candidate as the state machinery appears to be behind him.
I want to desist from this talk about 'the system' backing. What I would say is 'the system' is not hostile..
We have gone to all elections with very hostile systems where survival has been very difficult. People are trying to say we have not been robbed.
Raila has never had a friendly system; it has been a very hostile political environment orchestrated by the system at the time.
This time the system is not hostile and the atmosphere is conducive to campaigning
I don’t want this discussion coming from Tangatanga that Raila is a system’s candidate; Raila has never been a system’s candidate. People know what Raila stands for.
He started running when Kanu was Mama na Baba and former President Daniel Moi was everything but Raila ran against Moi.
Raila supported Mwai Kibaki against Moi;, in 2013 he ran against a very hostile system led by Kibaki. It initially and deceptively indicated it would support Mudavadi but finally it supported Uhuru, and people know it.
When I hear people say that no candidate not supported by system has won, that is not entirely correct. In fact, there is only one election where a candidate not supported by system has won and that was in 2002.
In the rest of the elections, supported by the system won.
In 1992, 1997, 2007, 2013, 2017 elections, the winners had system backing.
In 2013, people are denying the obvious but towards the end after Uhuru had made it clear that he was going for the presidency, the system was behind Uhuru entirely — unless you don’t know what system is all about.
Kibaki was for Uhuru, I know there was a battle within State House, some supporting Uhuru and Mudavadi, and finally the forces within State House crystallised and supported Uhuru in 2013.
Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka is arguably the tiebreaker in this presidential election. Do you agree and believe Raila needs him to increase his chances of victory?
Certainly yes, Kalonzo. It is my personal opinion, Kalonzo is someone you cannot ignore if you want to be the president.
You must know how to deal with Kalonzo, he has a following it is not something you can run away from.
Between Kalonzo and Musalia Mudavadi, I have kept on telling people the person someone we should look for with vigour is Kalonzo. Mudavadi has no clout.
Mudavadi would take not more than 300,000 votes from Western Kenya, unless supported by other people. Then he gives an indication he is going to win .
Kalonzo has no less than a million voters from lower Eastern and you know there is a strong presence of the Kamba nation in the Coast region. And in Nairobi you cannot wish away the Kamba influence, especially on the governorship.
Kalonzo is someone who should occupy some space and you must bring him in if you want to get those votes.
Into Azimio politics, your nascent coalition party is said to be staring at make-or-break in the primaries. How prepared are you for this delicate exercise and are you worried about fallouts?
That is something that cannot be wished away, it needs to be thought out very carefully and the coalition management team needs to look at that.
The best way is to candidly discuss the strengths of various political parties in various regions.
Let us not assume that a party, just because some leadership comes from certain regions, that the party control the politics of that region or regions
ODM has been around for awhile and has entrenched itself, our structures are across the country.
There are ODM supporters across the country, if you zone some regions and keep them away, then you are hurting their spirit. These are people who have stuck with ODM for so long and you cannot come one day and say they are irrelevant because you have got new friends.
We must find a way of accommodating new friends and long-time supporters.
Again, joint nomination may not easily work. If you if you come to Homa Bay where I'm from, how many DAP-K supporters are there?
Under the law, you cannot use non-members in nominations. Come to Homa Bay, you want to do joint nominations between DAP-K, Jubilee and ODM. The first question you would ask is the register of all members.
In Homa Bay, ODM right now has 226,000 members, how many are Jubilee members? Maybe not even 1,000 genuine members unless some people were fraudulently registered.
Remember last time, Uhuru got less than 1,000 members in Homa Bay, DAP members may not even be 500. So how do you do joint nominations in Homa Bay between Jubilee, ODM and DAP-K when all members participating are only in ODM?
Some of these parties have just been formed, where is the membership?
We may do a survey to get an indication of who is more popular in particular area for a specific seat, whether from Jubilee, ODM or DAP-K.
Based on that, we can escalate the discussion and ask such people if there is a Jubilee member more popular in an ODM area, how do we deal with someone like that?
Do we ask that person to leave Jubilee for ODM against his political convictions or we do we field them as individual members of Azimio Party?
There are murmurs around coordination of Azimio campaigns. It has been reported the friction has been pronounced with Raila’s absence and that's why deputy party leader Wycliffe Oparanya has been skipping Azimio Mashinani rallies?
I can’t speak for Oparaya. I'm not sure he has kept off because I gathered he has been engaged in other party political activities.
There have been concerns here and there about the coordination but you must also appreciate the Azimio Secretariat was just recently set up.
In the short time the Secretariat has been in office, they have done what they could and they are improving by the day. Some things should be done differently, especially communication, deciding which area we want to go to.
We need to be clear on mapping the country and coming up with timetable so that we don’t collide with any other team.
Azimio we can form up to four campaign teams headed by different people. If we can just use our resources properly, those are things we are discussing internally and I think we will come up with a very strong strategy and team.
We can have our presidential campaign lead some team, Hassan Joho, Oparanya, senior jubilee officials and senior members in the team like James Orengo and myself leading various teams elsewhere.
Recently, a group of your party members protested what they called using the national presidential campaigns to vouch for some individuals aspirants. Is that the case?
I haven’t seen that being widespread, it is lack of focus. I call it unfortunate; some of us need to realise that Azimio was meant for presidential campaigns largely, let us not trivialise it and customise it for certain individual campaigns, especially before party primaries.
We have many candidates within Azimio, we should avoid going for individual campaigns, but you know sometimes we have other interests; women constituencies may have own interests.
Women within Azimio may have a political merry-go-round where they come to your function and you also attend theirs to promote themselves. But instead of calling them Azimio, let us call them what they are. Camouflaging and mixing it with Azimio. I think is misbehaviour.
What stands in Raila’s way?
Much of what might not work for him I may whisper to him in private, I don’t think I would put it in public media.
I would say that Raila Odinga should just stick to what Kenyans know about him and which he has been doing.
Also, Raila should not get entangled in unnecessary small fights within our political groupings of Azimio and ODM.
Let other structures deal with nominations, but keep Raila up there.
What should Kenyans expect from the NDC towards the end of the month?
Kenyans should expect a clear campaign manifesto and ODM policies going to next elections; a clear policy of Raila Odinga as our party leader and Raila as our presidential candidate unveiled by ODM
What happened to the ODM, Jubilee pre-coalition talks?
The talks are ongoing, we are even holding joint NDCs where we expect Jubilee to come out officially to now endorse Raila as their presidential candidate.
The talks have been going on and that is why we are where we are.
(Edited by V. Graham)
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