President William Ruto (left) shakes hands with Raila Odinga during the launch of the ODM leader's bid for the African Union Commission chairmanship campaign on August 27, 2024 at State House, Nairobi.
There’s been plenty of chatter all over the place since opposition leader Raila Odinga decamped to President William Ruto’s side. There are those who accuse the veteran symbol of protest politics in Kenya of betraying the Gen Z revolt, in particular, and the opposition cause in general.
There is of course no doubt that Mr Odinga provided a lifeline for a beleaguered president. His move deflated the youthful protesters who had given President Ruto the most serious challenge to his young regime, and also left the formal political opposition critically short of numbers.
But Mr Odinga has his supporters who read hypocrisy on the part of critics. They counter that the opposition titan was never automatically obligated to lend his support to any movement, and retains every right to make his own political choices. They also point out that critics have no moral right to lecture Mr Odinga as they had no complaints when he previously crossed from opposition benches to enter into periods of cooperation, “handshakes” or formal alliances with past governments, including President Ruto’s predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta, as well as presidents Mwai Kibaki and Daniel Moi.
Both sides are right. Mr Odinga took advantage of the Gen Z revolt against high taxation, corruption, waste and bad governance to wangle for himself and his ODM party a seat at President Ruto’s high table. He also occasioned the ludicrous and thoroughly dishonest situation where ODM continues to occupy the leadership seats in Parliament reserved for the opposition, yet it also trumpets its new-found status as part of government.
His move left the opposition Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition hamstrung, shorn of its dominant partner and the remaining leaders struggling for relevance.
But then, in our political dynamics, Mr Odinga has every right to make the moves he adjudges as the best options for himself, his party and even his community. Many of those complaining about his dalliance with President Ruto cannot stand anywhere near the same pedestal as Mr Odinga in lifetime commitment to the struggle against dictatorship and the struggle for democracy, human rights and justice.
Struggles for justice and liberty
Mr Odinga has the freedom to make his choices, and so do others to choose different paths and opt to keep the fires burning in the unending struggles for justice and liberty. They can, if they have the capacity, soldier on without him.
However, there are disturbing narratives emerging that badly expose the paucity of higher morals, principles and ideologies in our political conversations.
What made the Gen Z revolt so spectacularly inspiring was that it transcended our usual political divides which are built around blind allegiance to ethnic formations and dominant regional kingpins.
For the first time, we saw that Kenyans could come out in their thousands to say a very loud Nay to bad governance, without having to be mobilised by political leaders.
The youthful idealism put on display shook the nation. The demonstrations attracted admiration and support across ethnic identities, partisan affiliations, social and economic classes, religious beliefs, regional divides and all the other regular fault lines.
Kenyans witnessed for the first time that it is possible to make major political impact from outside the groupings controlled by the major political forces.
Contests at ethnic mathematics
The political classes across the usual divides, which depend on subservient, unthinking followers, felt collectively threatened. They had to come together and ensure that they protected their separate turfs from invasion by leaderless, tribeless, partyless hordes outside their direction and control.
They also had to ensure that the usual divides they thrive on to maintain power are restored and strengthened. Hence the very deliberate effort to launch an aggressive campaign of ethnic mobilisation. And the narratives being created that seek to reduce all developments since the Gen Z revolt broke out in June to pure ethnic competition.
Thus the so-called broad-based — some call it bread-based — government on absorption of Mr Odinga’s troops was not just about getting the ODM on board, but about getting an ethnic base that has been so long in opposition, onto the table.
The narrative goes further to craft the fiction that the union was motivated by need to halt the schemes of a populous community that has long dominated the political and economic scene.
The lie has been crafted that the Gen Z movement, far from being a popular, organically-growing revolt, was sponsored and driven by powerful and historically privileged groupings.
These are the lies that must be aggressively countered if we are to halt a slide into the next elections again being another contests at ethnic mathematics, rather than a contest of ideas.
[email protected]; @MachariaGaitho
