Prime Cabinet Secretary and Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi.
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi is putting his best foot forward in the Kenya Kwanza administration, even as he navigates the country’s intricate politics ahead of the 2027 election and 2032 succession race.
Having joined the country’s murky politics at a tender age, becoming the youngest Cabinet Minister at the age of 29 in 1989, Mr Mudavadi is virtually the most experienced member of President William Ruto’s Executive.
The Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs has cut a niche of a conciliatory leader in government, and is seen as the ‘voice of reason’ under the Kenya Kwanza administration.
While many political party leaders were reluctant to relinquish their party leadership posts after appointment to various State positions, the former vice president rose to the occasion and resigned as Amani National Congress (ANC) leader in October 2022, just a month after President Ruto was sworn into office, to clear his path for the PCS post.
Article 77 (2) of the Constitution states that an appointed State officer shall not hold office in a political party.
Mr Mudavadi has taken a keen interest in President Ruto’s bid to have his former political nemesis, Mr Raila Odinga, capture the chairmanship of the African Union Commission (AUC), and has been the face of his campaigns to win the top continental post.
Political earthquake
The former Deputy Prime Minister recently caught his supporters off-guard, when he hinted at another wave of the “political earthquake,” akin to the one which marked his official entry into President Ruto’s political fold ahead of the August 2022 elections.
He also suggested a fresh move he said would help strengthen the President’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party, lifting the lid on his bid to have his ANC party fold into UDA.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua (left), President Dr William Ruto and Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi at State House in Nairobi on September 27, 2022.
On Monday, the Nation established plans by the ANC party organs to begin “serious conversations on the planned merger,” with a view to developing a roadmap for the process.
Amani Council, which has the authority to run all the political affairs of the party, and the second most powerful party organ after the National Delegates Convention (NDC), is expected to begin deliberating on the matter soon.
According to the Registrar of Political Parties, a merger is the combination of two or more political parties into a single party - new or existing one (in this case UDA), after a party follows its constitution and procedures and makes the decision to merge.
The merger agreement is then signed and deposited with the registrar within 21 days of the signing, causing the registrar to withdraw and cancel the certificates of registration of the political parties that have merged and gazette the dissolution of the merged parties within seven days.
A certificate of full registration is then issued if a new political party is formed and thus a member of the political party that has merged with another automatically becomes a member of the new outfit.
Mr Mudavadi’s recent statement on the possible merger has received mixed reactions, with some ANC supporters opposing any potential plans to dissolve the party, raising questions about the PCS’s actual game plan.
ANC Secretary-General Omboko Milemba, who last week assured party supporters that it would not be dissolved, yesterday appeared to make an about-turn, explaining that he will have to consult with Mr Mudavadi, the party founder, on the future plans and prospects.
“I’m certainly sure he will call me and have a conversation on this matter as well as his plans because I carry a flagship of those ambitions,” Mr Milemba told the Nation on the phone.
The move to have ANC dissolved, however, continues to unsettle some leaders from the party especially in Western Kenya who feel the move might spell doom to their careers.
