Cord leader Raila Odinga with Amani National Congress Musalia Mudavadi at St Stephens Church Jogoo Road on April 24,2016.Photo Emmanuel Wanson
Amani
National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi is without doubt the most saleable
opposition leader at the moment. He does not elicit the kind of extreme ethnic
hostility as President Uhuru Kenyatta, Deputy President William Ruto
or Cord leader Raila Odinga.
Save
for Ruto, who hates him to the hilt, Mudavadi enjoys a rapport with President Uhuru and Raila, but trusts the latter more than the former judging by the recent rapprochement
between the two after parting ways in 2013.
His
tolerance level is the peace ingredient Kenya needs to calm the rapidly
building tempest as the country enters the 2017 elections homestretch, with too
many unresolved economic political problems. Compared to the 2013 general election, this time
round, Mudavadi better prospects of doing well in the polls, having
learnt harshly lessons.
If
public sentiments are any guide, he stands the chance to carry over 50 per cent
of the vote in Kakamega, Busia, Bungoma, Vihiga and Trans Nzoia. The figure
will be higher if he teamed up with Raila in 2017, a possibility
President Uhuru and DP Ruto would not want to imagine.
When
Mudavadi and Raila announced in Samburu that they were on
the verge on forming an alliance, the news was greeted with excitement in the former Vice President’s strongholds in Western with excitement. The electorate has
already come up with MusaRaila acronym in anticipation of Musalia-Raila ticket
to taken on UhuRuto! They endorsed the National Super Alliance during Wiper Party's NDC on Tuesday.
Away
from Western, huge bastions of Rift Valley, now indifferent to UhuRuto, are said
to be warming up to the latest development. In Western, this is the best news
the region has had since the times of Masinde Muliro and
Kijana Wamalwa .
At the last general election, Mudavadi’s favourability was subdued due to perceptions that
he was a President Uhuru’s project to deny Raila the presidency.
This time round, he is a beneficiary of the thinking that the Western region has rallied
solidly behind Raila in all the three times he has ran for President. It is therefore time for the opposition leader to return the favour by endorsing Mudavadi. From the look of things, it is highly
possible.
The
man nicknamed Phantom by his former Nairobi School rugby and football
teammates — including Uhuru — for his prowess to pop up from the
blues and score a try or unleash a thunderous bolt into goal.
As
the sprint to next August’s presidential election gathers momentum, it behooves
the ANC leader must be live to perennial factors that, at times, adversely affect his bid
to outplay his rivals. In football, possession football is the most effective
mode of defence if a team is ahead. If you are at par during a
match or trailing, the most effective formation is attack, attack and attack.
That component is lacking.
Instead,
Team Mudavadi embarked on playing possession football as soon as he announced his candidature. The outcome
is an apparent lack of strategy or one that is overly anonymous. He needs to
engage the electorate more than he is doing.
ANC
needs to weaken its opponents through force reason an argument, not violence.
Violence is not Mudavadi’s forte; he has built his candidature on nguvu ya hoja (force of reason) rather
empty rhetoric or violence, which are the hallmarks other opposition parties
and Jubilee Party.
Other
than the positive voter sentiments about the person of Mudavadi, fears still
abound that his team is still playing unhelpful possession football at the
expense of messages that resonate with specific audiences. Mudavadi must do a
Donald Trump: Shed the “beggars” and extortionists around him and reconstitute a
campaign team that will deliver him to State House. The “possession” mentality
in his campaign team undermines his bid to build a solid base in Western and by
extension the rest of the country.
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