Tana River Senator-elect Danson Mungatana has opined that time is ripe for Azimio la Umoja presidential candidate Raila Odinga to retire from politics.
He explained that Raila has been 'used' over the years by people who want to clinch power using his name.
“Raila is an important person to many of his 'political allies' and that is why they had to have him on the ballot so that they can claim their seats,” Mungatana said on Monday. He spoke on KTN News.
The senator-elect claimed that Raila had given up on running for presidency earlier but he was pressurised to do so, by people who directly benefit from him.
“These guys now came and pressurised him to petition the results so that they justify, having used him to secure seats and it is a very sad case,” Mungatana added.
Despite being in Kenya Kwanza coalition, Mungatana said he had very high respect Raila and would like to see him retire in peace.
“Even if we are in the other side, some of us have very high respect for him. But it's time we let him (Raila) go with respect, bow to the stage, because he has played his part,” he added.
The August polls marked the fifth time Raila was running for presidency.
Raila's first attempt to become president was in 1997 when he ran on the National Development Party (NDP) ticket. He lost, but remained active in politics.
In 2007, provisional results indicated that Raila was in the lead, but the final results announced by then then-electoral commission boss Samuel Kivuitu put Kibaki in the lead.
Kibaki was declared the winner with 4.58 million votes, against Raila’s 4.35 million votes, a difference of 231,000 votes.
In 2013 and 2017, Raila ran against President Uhuru Kenyatta but lost in both elections.
In 2017, however, the apex court nullified Uhuru's election but Raila boycotted the rerun.
In an interview, he told the Financial Times that he would not be vying for presidency in the future.
