The 10th Vice President, Kalonzo Musyoka, is a man in the spotlight.
This is because he is the only substantive principal under the One Kenya Alliance who hasn’t joined the two main coalitions of Kenya Kwanza under DP William Ruto (UDA), Musalia Mudavadi (ANC) and Moses Wetang’ula (ford Kenya, or President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga’s Azimio la Umoja.
The other co principals of Gideon Moi, Cyrus Jirongo et al are only waiting for a signal before they board the Azimio bandwagon. It was anticipated that Mudavadi and Wetang’ula would play ball and do the needful to isolate Ruto from the rest of the potential partners.
Kalonzo is a seasoned politician who has straddled the Ukambani landscape like a colossus, overshadowing Charity Ngilu as the first real presidential candidate in the region, to become the undisputed leader of the region.
While Ngilu was the first to run for president in 1997 under the Social Democratic Party, emerging a distant fourth, Kalonzo was hopefully waiting in the wings to succeed then retiring President Moi, since the Constitution didn’t allow him to run again after 2002.
Indeed when the moment of reckoning came, Moi decided to endorse the greenhorn Uhuru, whom he had nominated by having Mark Too step down for him to join Parliament.
Uhuru went on to lose to Mwai Kibaki of Narc, after section of Kanu led by Raila Odinga, George Saitoti, Moody Awori, Kalonzo and others teamed up with him.
After the landslide win by Narc, which was formed out of two other outfits — the National Alliance Party Kenya, comprising of Kibaki, Ngilu, the late Kijana Wamalwa, Mukhisa Kituyi, Anyang’ Nyong’o etc, and the Liberal Democratic Party led by Raila, JJ Kamotho, Awori and Saitoti, amongst others.
In the Narc government, Kibaki appointed Kalonzo as Environment minister, before the 2005 referendum falling out, when the LDP wing successfully led a NO vote in the referendum against the government.
Kalonzo and Raila teamed up with others, including Uhuru, to form the Orange Democratic Movement, but the party was registered by the state through lawyer Mugambi Imanyara.
Lawyer Daniel Maanzo counter registered ODM-Kenya, a party that later on became Wiper and in whose strength Kalonzo is the party leader and presidential aspirant.
Raila and his team settled on ODM and went on to challenge President Kibaki in the 2007 general election. It’s widely believed that Raila won the elections, forcing Kibaki to share power with him in a grand coalition agreement under ‘the National Accord’.
Having fallen out with Raila. Kalonzo joined hands with Julia Ojiambo of the Labour Party of Kenya (LPK) to run for the presidency, with Julia being his running mate.
They came a distant third after Kibaki and Raila, garnering 879,903 votes. Kibaki and Raila garnered 4,584,721 and 4,352,993 votes respectively.
Kalonzo was made vice president in the grand coalition agreement to shore up Kibaki’s support in person and in Parliament. He was seen as the heir apparent to Kibaki because Mt Kenya felt he had saved their day when things were very tight post 2007-08 election.
However, Raila on the other side felt that Kalonzo should have negotiated with him for a vice president slot, if that’s what he had wanted all along since, if he had joined either side, the win would have been decisive.
Kalonzo was widely quoted then as predicting that he would ‘pita kati yao’ (pass between Kibaki and Raila) without them noticing.
After the elections, Kalonzo’s popularity rose to an all-time high of 45 per cent. However, things changed due to the ICC cases, with Kalonzo ending up deputising Raila in the 2013 elections under the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy and in 2017 under Nasa. The runs were unsuccessful, leading to Kalonzo being in the political cold for over 10 years.
He has, however, managed to maintain relevance, despite the three Ukambani governors seeking to upstage him. Apart from Ngilu, who is running for a second term as governor, Kivutha Kibwana (Makueni) and Alfred Mutua (Machakos) had expressed their interst in the presidency until they backed Raila under Azimio.
Consequently, Raila’s camp has even declared it he doesn’t need Kalonzo, who it’s alleged wants the running mate position. Kalonzo has ostensibly asked for a public guarantee from President Kenyatta, since according to him, Raila has failed him in the past and therefore cannot be trusted.
Kalonzo has the option of either joining the Kenya Kwanza Alliance, where Johnson Muthama, his former Wiper chairman is the chairman of UDA, or decide to run alone, to be a distant third and thereafter join whichever side in a runoff or in a post-election coalition government.
What is clear for all to see is that Kalonzo is the man in the political limelight, and whichever way he decides to go, it will definitely sway public opinion.
But will he continue to hold on as the undisputed Ukambani kingpin going forward?
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