The most tragic thing that happened in this country, following the restoration of multiparty politics in 1991 was the death of Ford party vice chairman Masinde Muliro in August 1992.
By the time the celebrated politician collapsed and died at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport upon returning from a trip to London, then single Ford party had been embroiled in deep controversy over the modalities and choice of the political outfit's presidential candidate in the elections that were then just four months away.
The infamous Section 13 of the party’s constitution meant to guide the party on how to pick its flagbearer, had become a sticking point, with the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga faction rooting for an electoral college system while Kenneth Matiba’s followers, obviously riding on perceived large numbers within their central Kenya homeland, insisted on universal suffrage to elect Ford’s candidate.
Against this backdrop, there emerged an outspoken and large number of opposition followers, worried that President Moi’s Kanu was sowing seeds of discord within Ford, who pushed for both Jaramogi and Matiba to sit out the elections and have Muliro as the compromise opposition. At the time of his mysterious death, there were rumours that there may even have already been a compromise deal on the table, and certain party members attributed his death to this.
I have often wondered how the 1992 elections would have panned out had Muliro lived to take part in it, either as the Ford compromise candidate, thereby averting the breakup that soon happened, or as Jaramogi’s running mate in Ford Kenya. It is not difficult to conclude that the grand old man would have sided with the Jaramogi side, as his Bukusu people of Bungoma and Trans Nzoia districts stayed firmly put in Ford Kenya after firebrand Ford secretary general Martin Shikuku fled with the “Abakakamega” wing of the Luhya nation to Kenneth Matiba’s Ford Asili.
Muliro was a towering figure and a widely respected man within Kenyan politics. There are very few politicians in this land, past and present, against whose names you can add that phrase. I have always felt that the permutations would have been turned on their heads had he been part of the 1992 general election. But the more interesting scenario would have been if Muliro had been there to succeed Jaramogi Oginga Odinga as Ford Kenya after the doyen of Kenyan politics died in 1994, and subsequently, the clear favourite to be the more appealing opposition presidential candidates.
This hypothetical calculation presupposes that Ford Kenya wouldn’t have suffered the mass movement to the National Development Party as it did in 1997, if Muliro had been alive as its new chairman. Most of the controversy surrounding the party, which occasioned its breakup, had to do with chairman Wamalwa Kijana’s political methods. A more respected figure would most likely have earned the trust and loyalty of Raila Odinga at that time, and the story of NDP might never have been told. In that scenario, with Luos staying in Ford Kenya and the Luhya having a credible, powerful figure as the party’s presidential candidate, within the same party, 1997 would have turned out truly exciting.
I am reminded of these historical anecdotes by reports of impending transitions within Raila’s ODM party today. To be honest, the media seems more preoccupied with this so-called fight in ODM to succeed the former Prime Minister, than the party members and officials themselves. When you wake up and pick any Kenyan daily, there will be fresh reports, manufactured in the newsroom, of an impending implosion within the party, with top party bosses allocated factions that are supposedly locked in bitter confrontations for supremacy.
To begin with, I don’t believe there are any existing factions in the Orange party. Perhaps even more intriguingly, the perception of factions has been fuelled by the return of one of the deputy party leaders, Hassan Joho, from a long political hiatus. Joho’s opportunistic re-emergence, coupled with a loud claim on the party’s leadership, yet Raila himself has declared he will be “just two hours away in Addis”, doesn’t look tidy, for an experienced politician of that level.
Besides, the disappearance of the former Mombasa governor after the 2022 election, through a season in which the country has undergone real political turbulence where his formation badly needed him, speaks volumes about his loyalty, or lack of it, to his party and leader.
Obviously, at some point in the near future, there will be leadership changes in ODM. In my view, for the party to hold and retain its national face, the basic principle would be that Raila’s successor will have to be a non-Luo. The danger of another Luo laying claim to the party leader’s position, while clearly lacking Raila’s nationalist credentials and charisma, is that the party would immediately begin to haemorrhage its non-Luo support, spread out mostly in Western, Coast and the pastoralist communities.
In my earlier dream of what might have been had Muliro lived, I am persuaded that if the Luo community remains fully in ODM after Raila’s exit, while maintaining allegiance to his non-Luo successor, they hold the best chance to either spread the party’s support wider or to retain the base that Raila has built over the years.
The only problem members of the party will face is that neither Joho nor former Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya, the two Raila deputies, measures up as an inspirational enough alternative for the top job.
But all these discussions around succession in ODM almost deliberately forget that the former premier is still alive and will play the biggest role in this process, should the time come. I actually get the impression that Raila has a good idea about whom he prefers to head his beloved party once he departs. I suspect that the real insiders are the folks who declare that “Baba is going nowhere and will keep heading the party”. In my estimation, for instance, Joho’s loud noises about this being his time after he has supported Raila for decades, are clear indicators of an outsider who fears that the stars haven’t and will not align in his favour.
ODM is actually a product of a decades-old movement that goes back to the second liberation fights mounted by Jaramogi and his peers after they declared Kenya’s independence a stillbirth. There is an ideological grounding in the party that doesn’t exist in its competitors. It may have metamorphosed in different names over the years, from Ford, Ford Kenya, NDP, LDP and ODM, but it is still largely the same movement of people who believe that the country is yet to get a proper liberation hero into the presidency.
This is why I consistently aver that those who seek leadership of the party post-Raila need to examine the immediate post-Jaramogi period to understand what caused the failures of ideology and unity, and prolonged the fight for greater democracy in Kenya.
It is then that they can have a good enough idea of what pitfalls befell the political formations between 1994 and 1997, and how they can help the party transition beyond Raila as a credible movement drawing support across the land. Otherwise, the movement will end up being led by businessmen interested in leveraging the party in quid pro quo arrangements struck with power barons in the dead of night.
Political commentator