Prime Minister Raila Odinga was born on January 7, 1945. He has been Lang'ata MP since 1992. This is the third time he' is vying for Kenya's presidency. Last week he appeared on Kiss TV's JSO@7 with John Sibi-Okumu. He are excerpts from the interview transcribed by Star writer SHARON MACHARIA.
Prime Minister, as you declare yourself to be the president of change, may I begin by asking you why Kibera, the constituency that you have led for so long, is still designated as a slum?
Well, as you know, Kibera is in the midst of Lang'ata constituency. It was worse off when I took over like 20 years ago. Over the years we have tried to improve conditions within the slums.
For example we have done some roads, we have brought water to the people, we have brought ablution blocks: toilets and so on within the slum itself.
But we have a major programme of slum upgrading, which has stalled really because of litigation by some detractor owners in the slums. This project would have been rolled out much earlier but there was a court injunction to stop the programme.
I have tried my best to improve the living conditions within the slums. We have also improved schools. We have constructed new schools in the area. So, Kibera today is better than it was 20 years ago, when I first became the member of parliament for the area.
Prime Minister in the course of the politicking that has been going on, one of the accusations that has been levelled against you by some of your campaigning colleagues has to do with the question of land: They ask why is Raila Odinga talking about land when he should go back and explain what he did with the molasses plant? Prime Minister what did you do with the molasses plant?
John, land is a very crucial issue that must be addressed by Kenyans, it cannot be just swept under the carpet. And, right now, we are actually at the stage of implementing the National Land Policy through the National Land Commission which, as you know, should have been gazetted but that has not been done up to now because of some political pressures (Editor's note: President Kibaki gazettes the nine names of the National Land Commission on Wednesday last week).
Prime Minister I asked you a direct question with the key words: molasses plant.
The Molasses plant (saga) is very poor propaganda. The molasses plant, as we know, was a giant venture between the government of Kenya and some foreign investors.
It was an ambitious programme which was introduced in the days of the oil crisis. It was supposed to be producing ethanol. Unfortunately, because of corruption and other political pressures and vested interests, it stalled.
The understanding is that the corruption was with your tacit blessing.
No. I was not in government at the time. After the project went sour it was put under receivership by Ernst and Young who then decided to sell it through an auction process.
My company got involved in the auction in which over 20 companies participated. It was sold to the highest bidder at the fall of the hammer. My company was known as Spectre International.
The transaction was above board. In other words, they sold the plant as machinery plus the land. Spectre acquired it. There was no corruption involved in that land transaction. The company bought it through an auction.
Prime Minister, the other criticism that is inherent in such assertions is that your own integrity would not be intact if placed under scrutiny. How do you respond to that?
I have said let anybody with any evidence come up and produce it. I have said everything that I do is above board and that's the reason why all this time I have actually challenged my competitors to come up with any evidence of any kind of corrupt practice in regard to me.
They have been mentioning this molasses thing, they know it's pure propaganda. There is no truth in whatever is being said about the molasses plant.
There is nothing else because I have been filing returns annually to the parliament about my assets and the source of funding for all those assets.
I would like, Prime Minister, to go back to this whole idea of ethnicity which was a major part of the (first) presidential debate. You would be a divisive figure and you would have to spend a significant part of your presidency just healing the wounds of what seems to be half the nation pitted against you and extremely keen to make sure that Raila Amolo Odinga does not become president in the first place.
That's really very far from the truth. The fact that a few people are completely against me does not mean that they are actually representing their communities.
Down there you will find that I am the only politician who enjoys support across the board. You will see that my support is spread throughout.
I am leading for example in six out of eight regions in the country and even in those two other regions where I am not leading, I still have very reasonable support.
So, I am the best qualified person at this moment in our country's history to unify this country. I will bring the people together. I will ensure that there is equity in the distribution of resources, that appointment to public positions is done not only on merit but that there is also equity and regional balancing.
Still on this idea of unity, there are other criticisms levelled against you: Your party primaries were shambolic; Odinga tried every possible way to reinstate members of his family; that Luoland, where he comes from, is rebelling against him; there is rebellion and dissension in his own backyard. A response please?
Sibi, you know that ODM is a national party and that is the reason why of course there is a lot of interest in different parts of the country. There are other areas where the nominations themselves were like elections and because of that, the competition was much stronger in those areas. The time given for the nomination by political parties was short and...
But deliberately so. You had a huge window of opportunity but the idea was to wait until the last possible moment so as not to have any queries thereafter. That was a political ploy.
Now, you know what would have happened. It's the law itself which had restricted the political parties to the nominations. And I think that the Political Parties Act needs to be amended so that the Registrar of Political Parties is not given the powers to micromanage affairs of political parties.
Political parties are associations, societies which should decide their own agenda themselves. In the UK, nominations are done by political parties one year or six months before the elections.
Then there is no reason why these should have been pushed forward. For example, they gave this idea of "party hopping" to have been fixed for 4th of December.
Parliament decided to push it to 4th of January and then later on to 18th of January, because each and every political party was trying to avoid a situation where losing candidates would be able to jump to opposing political parties.
So you are trying to suggest that our politics is not at all issue-based. Would the Cord coalition be the first government in Kenyan history which is going to focus on issues rather than personality?
Certainly, Sibi. As I said, there has been evolution in the development of political parties in our country since the introduction of multi-party politics in 1991/92.
Our trend here has been so very like what has happened in other countries: You saw what happened in Eastern Europe following the collapse of communism.
So, many political parties emerged but then, after a while, these parties began to coalesce and to merge so that eventually we ended up with two or three party systems. I think that our political party system must come of age in this country and we too will end up with two or three political parties.
Talking of coalescing, I don't think the names Raila Amolo Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka were ever deemed to be on the same side. Is this coalescing a Machiavellian construct that leads to power when bitter enemies suddenly come together?
They say that in politics there are no permanent enemies or permanent friends. What is most important are principles and interests in politics.
That’s the reason why you find such unlikely alliances as that between Nelson Mandela and de Klerk. De Klerk represented the apartheid system which had put Mandela in prison for 28 years. But Mandela ultimately agreed to come out and work with de Klerk.
So, are you trying to suggest that your differences with Mr Musyoka were as great, in giving that example?
I am giving an extreme example.As you know, I and Mr Musyoka have worked together: We came out of the Kanu system together. We formed the LDP together.
We were in the Narc government together. We were together fighting against the mutilated constitution. We were sacked, or dismissed, by the president together.
We formed ODM. Eventually the ODM split. We ended up with ODM Kenya and we were ODM. So he renamed ODM Kenya: “Wiper.” But it is still chungwa (the orange).
We have come back together: the chungwa moja and the chungwa and a half. The differences between were much narrower and you now realise that, if we had stuck together, things would have have turn out very differently.
Your own experience Prime Minster of coalition government seems to indicate that you were short-changed. Should ODM be the key player, do you see other parties being short-changed under a Raila government? I am trying to suggest that the people in your government will be the beneficiaries of a reward system and not necessarily the best to lead this country. You will be paying back favours; political favours.
You see, ultimately, good governance has to do with institutions and respect for these institutions. What happened last time round is that we had weak institutions.
For example, remember the electoral commission itself had been appointed by the executive single handedly. They were supposed to be the referee in the game but they were appointed by one of the players in the field and, therefore, they were partisan and they are the ones who were really responsible for the mess that cost this country dearly.
Now, since that time, a lot of water has gone under the bridge. We now have a new constitution. Secondly, we now have new electoral laws and an electoral commission.
What we will do as the Cord coalition is to sincerely and faithfully implement this new constitution; to ensure that the playing field is level for everybody.
We do not want to see a repeat of what happened last time in this country. If we implement this constitution properly we will transform Kenya and we will be able then to realise the Kenyan dream as envisaged by the founding fathers of our nation.
Prime Minister, l’m still interested in the composition of your government. In the technocrats who will be part of your grouping. I am interested in the people that you might name as ambassadors to represent us abroad. I am saying it could be a case of favours returned.
Not this time round because things have changed. First the team being the executive, that is for example the cabinet, the permanent secretaries and the diplomats have all got to be vetted by parliament which does the due diligence and then sends the names back to the president for appointment.
So, we will no longer have the abuse of rewarding cronies and friends. Secondly, we want to establish a system that works efficiently. So, the recruitment is going to be done on merit.
It will also ensure that there is equity in terms of regional balancing, so that we do not reward other people, here and there. You mentioned my relatives earlier.
Let me just tell you that I have never at any time been involved in the appointment of my relatives for any position. My relatives are Kenyans. When they apply, they are vetted just like any other Kenyan.
I did not know that if you are a Prime Minister then it is a crime for a relative of yours to be appointed in government. Remember when John F. Kennedy appointed his brother Robert (as Attorney General). And the (Milliband) brothers in UK. And the twin brothers in Poland. I could go on and on.
I think that at this point we should give you some time, Prime Minister, as we have done with others, to elaborate on the Cord coalition’s commitment to an “equitable distribution of the country’s wealth.” Is this just a high sounding phrase? Break it down into component parts.
Well, first of all, the constitution has provided for devolution and, in that, there is also a formula for wealth sharing. For example, in terms of the mineral resources of this country, if they are found in a particular county, what proportion will go to that county, what proportion will go to the investor and what proportion to the national government.
That’s why we are saying we are going to faithfully implement the constitution to ensure that there is fairness in this country. And there are other counties which are more endowed with resources than others.
And there is also a provision for a balancing. That’s why, for example, we are talking of equalisation of funds, so as to be able to bridge the gap that will exist between the counties, in terms of resources.
We as a national government will be like the referee in this process because we don't want 47 countries under one roof; we want to have one country.
We want to ensure that there is uniform development across the country. So, we will create structures and systems that will enable us to monitor and supervise development throughout this country, and in doing this we will be able to change and transform this country.
I have, for example, in mind what happened in Malaysia. Malaysia is a multi-ethnic society, and in Malaysia they have a formula for sharing the resources of that country along ethnic lines.
For example there are the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians and several other minorities. They know that if you are going to recruit 100 policemen, so many must be Malays, so many will be Chinese and Indians and so on.
So, in other words, if you are looking for merit and it’s a Chinese quota, it must be a merit within the Chinese because they might also have somebody.
The EL Molo, the smallest community in this country, will have that share the same with the Kikuyu which is the biggest community. We want to unify the country to ensure that the country moves up in harmony. This is what Cord is promising.
Prime Minister you have this history of having fought for liberation, having been incarcerated for your beliefs, having been tortured. You were born in 1945. Is your understanding that this time it is do or die: If Raila doesn't make it this time it will never happen. Are these things that exercise your mind as you go into the elections? Must you go down in the history books as the liberation fighter who eventually became president? Is that how you see it?
No, Sibi. It is not a zero-sum game for me. For me it is a calling: I represent a group of people. I represent a system or a movement. This movement has been in existence since independence.
Remember that, after independence, there was a split between two opposing forces: The forces for retention of the status quo, those who wanted to inherit the privileged position enjoyed by the outgoing colonialists.
And they used it to lord it over their fellow Africans. And the forces who wanted to open up the society, and provide for popular participation by the people and their governance.
So there are forces that have been engaged in a struggle over this last 50 years. They have been pulling in two opposite directions: The forces for change and the forces for retention of the status quo. I represent the former.
For people who want to change this country and allow our people to participate fully in its development. To empower the people to popular participation.
If the people of this country elect me for the first time, the others will have eventually triumphed. In other words, we have been governed by the forces who wanted to retain the status quo.
That’s the reason why Kenya's potential has not been fully realised. Because there has been very ethnicised development. And that’s why the countries which were at the same level of development with Kenya, and I keep on giving the example of Korea, have left us behind with such a huge gap.
Korea's GDP per capita income was at $79 in 1970 against 110 for Kenya. Today, the per capita income of Korea is $22,000 against Kenya’s $460.
That gap is because of the way Kenya has managed its affairs. We can close that gap and I want to be an agent who will help our people to close it.