A friend of mine saw pictures of ODM boss in a rickety boat in Lamu county, during the party’s ongoing recruitment drive, and remarked, “Look at what Raila [Odinga] has to go through to build his party, yet there are politicians just waiting for him to endorse them for the presidency when elections come.” I cannot pretend that I had no idea who he had in mind with this subtle dig.
Raila is 79. He has the political energy of a rhino, still covering massive square kilometres criss-crossing the country in political blitzkriegs that make much younger opponents green with envy. As the 2027 election approaches, the biggest discussion within Kenya’s never-slumbering political space is just what the Azimio chief will do, or not do, during the coming polls.
Obviously, topping that discourse is whether Raila may opt to sit out the coming election and endorse someone else. As of now, the names thrown around from the endorsement list come from what Portuguese football manager, Jose Mourinho, would term a “small group of one”, Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka. But you wouldn’t rule out the 2022 Azimio running mate, Martha Karua, or indeed ODM’s deputy party leader, and a permanent fixture beside the former Prime Minister these days, former Kakamega governor Wycliffe Oparanya.
However, the more compelling question beyond how the person Raila endorses, if he indeed does, will perform at the polls, is just who among the waiting cast has done enough to deserve his backing. And this, for me, encompasses doing enough to actually get the Raila voting base itself to approve this endorsement and go to the polls to elect this individual, as it did in 2002 for Mwai Kibaki, who had then been injured and was on a wheelchair to boot!
It is here that I believe the difficult issues emerge.
First, after building ODM into a formidable force between now and the polls, does Raila then hand over this support to the leader of a much smaller party? With the political ideology of “only big rivers swallow small rivers” already widely used in this land, will ODM members then readily support the leader of the smaller party?
In the past few weeks, as ODM conducted its grassroots recruitment drive, I have been amazed by the reception it has received in different parts of the country. In fact, in Kwale county for instance, both the senator and the woman representative returned to the fold after a long absence, and pledged their loyalty to the ODM boss. This growing grassroots support, if you ask me, is due to Raila as the man the masses see as a saviour from the poor governance and corruption associated with the Kenya Kwanza regime.
Is this support transferable based merely on the ODM leader’s word? I would say not quite. If anything, while the former PM is on standby to issue statements condemning corruption and misrule perpetuated by the regime nearly every week, the worry has been “where are the others who want the presidency?”
Before you consider Raila’s national base, let us briefly examine his ethnic base of Luo Nyanza. My suspicion is that the attempts to flip it, conducted by the ruling UDA party and mostly using senior government officials from the region, are based more on the assumption that the Azimio leader will not be on the ballot in 2027. An endorsement of someone else by the ODM boss, leaving him out of the ballot, would make these regime forays even stronger, in the belief that Luo Nyanza would then have become an electoral battleground zone.
As for age, we don’t need to look too far to find an answer. At the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga death anniversary on January 20, at the Ofafa Memorial Hall in Kisumu, Raila’s elder brother, Siaya Senator Oburu Odinga, pointed at himself and wondered why anyone would see the ODM leader as too old, yet he, an older sibling, was still going strong and walking straight. He stated that in his view, his younger brother was still “a mere child”. Indeed, their younger sister, Kisumu Woman Representative Ruth Odinga, declared at the same gathering that she had recently been the recipient of dreams from their ancestors declaring that Raila’s time had finally come and 2027 was the year!
I am persuaded that the ODM boss should go for an unprecedented sixth stab at the presidency, because his endorsing anyone else would amount to bestowing power on a less deserving, perhaps even lazy, individual without the wherewithal and acumen to build his own wide support.
What disturbs me more is that the political school that believes that “we will finally win if Raila supports someone else” thrives on the myth of the former PM being unelectable, and therefore perpetuates a silent tribal stigma. I am from the opposite school of thought, where if anyone chooses to reject the progressive Raila and chooses an incompetent kleptocrat, we should all suffer the consequences until we regain our senses.
There is a flipside though. Many who have worked within the Raila circles usually bemoan the chaos and disorder around his campaign teams. It is as if no thought goes into hiring campaign strategy, building security networks and establishing the ground to ensure he not only wins, but actually gets sworn into office. Nothing demonstrates this more than how his chief election agents were appointed ahead of the 2022 election.
Nobody had ever heard of his chief agent Saitabao Kanchory, before the appointment, or even what political nose placed him in a position to watch over the intrigue-filled national tallying centre at the Bomas of Kenya. Knowing Raila, a name from a minority community was what it took, a rather short-term way to think and go to the ballot.
The other issue, especially if Raila runs but loses, is that the longer it takes for progressive leadership to take power in the country, the more entrenched impunity and poor governance become. There is a philosophy of quick wealth that has taken root in our politics, where electoral positions have become avenues for enrichment, and where watches worth Sh4 million each, or belts valued at the same price as an acre of land in city suburbs, are fair game, as symbols of “progress”. The country is therefore for a progressive to take charge and recalibrate its democratic and economic journey. If Raila’s sacrifice would bring this change, maybe an endorsement would be worth it.
It is worth mentioning however that the ODM boss doesn’t quite love the presidency as much as parts of the public may believe. My reading of him over the years has been that he prefers a stronger parliamentary democracy, which strengthens independent institutions and safeguards national unity. In 1997, when he took his first stab, he was initially headed to supporting Kenneth Matiba as a joint opposition candidate, before the latter took the unwise decision to call for burning of voters cards.
Meanwhile, there are anecdotes to support the belief that he also may have endorsed someone else in both 2007 and 2013 if he had come upon one who held the ideals of a strong parliamentary base close. Maybe the ODM recruitment is meant to prepare his party for strong parliamentary numbers before endorsing someone, so that the next Parliament may lead this dream to fruition, but I would still pick his running over his endorsement of another individual.
The writer is a political commentator