Prime Minister Raila Odinga has known many battles in his political life but few will be as epic as his fight to clinch the presidency at the next elections.
The steady flight of allies from the Orange Democratic Movement and a seeming convergence of anti-Raila forces across the political divide has left him having to redefine his candidacy, search for new alliances and craft a strategy to confront what appears to be a determined effort by forces within and outside his party to block his path to State House.
The decision by his longtime deputy Musalia Mudavadi to all but sever ties with ODM is seen as the latest in a line of setbacks that mean that Mr Odinga will go into the next election without any of the original members of the Orange Pentagon by his side.
It will be a profound test of his mettle in a poll which is viewed as possibly his last chance to achieve the ultimate prize of the presidency which narrowly and controversially eluded him in December 2007.
Writing in the Sunday Nation on Sunday, the PM’s director of communications, Mr Dennis Onyango, says Mr Odinga intends to pivot away from the traditional vote winning strategy of forging alliances with ethnic kingpins and fight a battle of ideas revolving around the question of society’s haves and have-nots.
“The question the business and economic elite that has dominated Kenya ask themselves at moments of transition,” he writes, “is ‘If power is changing hands, is the likely new wielder really one of us?’
At this stage, ‘One of us’ does not mean a member of our tribe. It means a person who will not question how wealth was acquired, why some regions have benefited from state resources more than others and whether such a new leader would be weak enough to be manipulated and co-opted into the ranks of the established elite.
Tribe and region come in much later, when the figures fail to add up for those keen to preserve the status quo. That is the battle going on in ODM and across Kenya.
It is the struggle Raila in particular and Kenyans have to deal with in this election. It is the same one (Martha) Karua has to face.”
Even as Mr Odinga’s team works on a new plan for the PM, one of the questions dominating debate in political circles is how Mr Odinga — who swept the vote in six out of eight provinces at the last election and enjoyed the backing of majority of MPs in Parliament in 2008 — has found himself in a position where he has to fight for his political life at the next elections.
The team of national figures from across the country that backed Mr Odinga and came to be known as the Pentagon have all deserted him or are in the process of leaving the party.
Eldoret North MP William Ruto was the first to quit before Mvita legislator Najib Balala followed suit.
Water minister Charity Ngilu is said to be planning to go public with her disaffection and there are indications that informal feelers have been sent to Mr Mudavadi to join her Narc outfit.
Some see an external hand in Mr Odinga’s predicament while pointing out that some of his decisions in the early years of the coalition have proved costly.
His morally courageous and nationally popular stand on a number of issues has proved damaging in the ethnicised world of Kenyan politics.
His aggressive push for the removal of squatters in the Mau water tower which was heavily populated by the Kalenjin proved highly unpopular in the Rift Valley.
His vocal support for the International Criminal Court process and the deft manipulation of ethnic sentiment by supporters of the suspects left Mr Odinga facing an uphill battle in the constituencies dominated by Deputy PM Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Ruto.
The fact he did not secure the presidency at the last elections, he says, burdened him with numerous constituencies which wanted to be rewarded but which the PM could not feasibly satisfy.
“All the communities in the pro-Raila alliance had been promised something. They had very high expectations but the reality was that Raila, in circumstances which dictated he had to share power with PNU, had limited capacity to deliver.”
Mr Makali says the ambitions of Mr Ruto, in particular, proved difficult to contain because it had been expected that the division of power in an ODM government would see Mr Odinga take the presidency, Mr Mudavadi the vice-presidency and Mr Ruto, Mr Balala, and Mrs Ngilu would have shared the prime ministerial and deputy prime ministerial slots, respectively.
“Right from 2002, the Kalenjin felt that they were the primary victims of the Kibaki administration which they felt had alienated them,” he says.
“They wanted someone who they thought could take them back to power or at least give them a toehold in the administration.
They initially considered Kalonzo Musyoka but he looked weak in comparison to Raila and they decided to throw their weight solidly behind Raila.
But when it turned out Raila had got only half a loaf, they pressed, almost unreasonably in my view, to be rewarded for their support.
They expected to get at least number two. The failure to get that meant Mr Ruto’s exit was inevitable. Another factor that played into this was that Raila decided to abandon the matter of rewarding constituencies and opted to pursue the path of a statesman as PM.”
Mr Makali says it would be unwise to write off Mr Odinga’s chances at this stage. He says the PM has shown himself to be someone who can take the fight to his rivals and his record indicates he has survived bruising battles in the past.
He argues the PM may take advantage of the departures from ODM to put forward a fresh, reformist campaign platform before the polls.
Apart from this, the PM’s allies insist that the state of affairs in ODM is the result of machinations by powerful external actors.
They describe what has been called the “onion strategy” which was aimed at peeling off the PM’s key supporters one after the other to leave Mr Odinga in a similar position to the one President Moi found himself in going into the 2002 elections.
Going into that election, Mr Moi’s candidate, Uhuru Kenyatta, was left almost entirely isolated with only Mr Mudavadi among those considered political heavyweights at the time sticking by him.
Moneyed elite
Mr Odinga is said to be working on a strategy that will position himself with the poor masses against what he characterises as an elitist alliance which fears policies he would implement to promote greater equality.
But Mr Mudavadi’s allies have dismissed the theory of an external hand in the problems within ODM, saying hawkish members of Mr Odinga’s inner circle are to blame for the looming exit of the deputy prime minister from the party.
An insider in the Mudavadi camp who requested anonymity to discuss freely relations between Mr Odinga and Mr Mudavadi traced the arc of events which are set to culminate in the DPM’s exit to around November 2010.
He says suggestions by a number of Mr Odinga’s allies that the PM should look for an alternative running mate to Mr Mudavadi unsettled the party’s deputy leader and alerted him to the fact he might be expendable.
Mr Odinga’s assertions on the campaign trail in western Kenya that his biological roots could be traced among the Luhya was seen as a signal that he could get that vote bloc to back him without Mr Mudavadi’s help.
Matters came to a head in May 2011 during the Ikolomani constituency by-election. Mr Mudavadi’s camp claim that people in the PM’s camp supported New Ford Kenya candidate Bonny Khalwale against the ODM candidate in a bid to cast the deputy PM as a weak leader in his own backyard.
Suggestions by some within the PM’s camp that Mr Mudavadi should be considered for another post such as Finance minister, House majority leader or Nairobi county governor to free up the running mate slot proved the last straw.
The deputy prime minister decided to launch a full scale campaign for the presidency himself, they say.
Prof Winnie Mitullah of the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Nairobi says Mr Mudavadi’s exit could either serve as a boon or a blow to the party.
“The departure of such a key figure definitely represents a loss. But rocking a party from within for too long can only be bad for a party. Those within ODM must consider that it is better for the party that things are settled either way soon.”
Prof Mitullah says the unsettled situation on the political scene with numerous bewildering realignments and constant defections across parties is an indictment of the state of democracy in the country.
Her colleague at the University of Nairobi, Dr Adams Oloo, says the looming break-up of ODM will not be regarded as one of Kenyan democracy’s finest moments.
“If you look back at how political parties have split going back to 1992, the issue of the mode of nominations and party rules have been the excuse rather than the reason for the split.
That was the case in the break-up of Ford, in the ODM, ODM-K parting of ways and to a lesser extent in the fall of Kanu in 2002. That means that the notion that there is an external hand orchestrating these events is not so far-fetched.”
If Mr Odinga finds himself isolated by the stream of departures from ODM expected in the next two months, he will confront the sort of crisis in which he has thrived in the past.
In the early 1990s the younger Odinga was not viewed as a serious contender in the battle to inherit the political constituency headed by his father Jaramogi Odinga.
But he successfully outmanoeuvred other senior figures such as Achieng’ Oneko, James Orengo, Kijana Wamalwa, Paul Muite and Joab Omino to eventually consolidate the support base enjoyed by his father following Jaramog’s death in 1994.
In 1996 after falling out with Mr Wamalwa he took what was seen as a major gamble by resigning as an MP to contest the Langata seat on a National Development Party ticket. He prevailed against the combined muscle of the State in that by-election.
Possibly the high water mark of his career came in 2002 when he appeared to have been blindsided by President Moi’s choice of Mr Kenyatta as Kanu’s presidential candidate.
He reacted by causing an internal rebellion that left Kanu struggling for relevance and ended its four-decade hold on power.
The challenge he faces this time can be said to be greater than all of those. The fact that the men regarded as the leaders of three of the largest four ethnic blocs in the country are set to rally against him is one of the main factors complicating his presidential bid.
And although Mr Odinga says he is planning to rebrand his campaign and appeal to voters to look beyond ethnicity in making a decision on the candidate they will back at the next elections, the Sunday Nation understands that he is looking at ways to fill the gap left by Mr Mudavadi by nominating someone from western Kenya, preferably from Bungoma and Trans Nzoia.
Such a move could conceivably split the Luhya vote because of the traditional rivalry between Mr Mudavadi’s Maragoli and the Bukusu sub-tribes.
There has also been talk of House Speaker Kenneth Marende being picked as an alternative running mate while other advisers have suggested nominating a candidate from one of the ethnic communities without a serious presidential candidate such as a Muslim from Coast province or a political figure from Meru.
Either way, Mr Odinga will be hoping that matters do not end up like they did in 1992 in the battle between Jaramogi and his rival Kenneth Matiba.
The contest for dominance in ODM has distinct parallels with the fight between the elder Odinga and Mr Matiba which centred on party nomination rules. Section 13 of Ford’s constitution stipulated that the party’s presidential candidate would be picked by a popular vote.
The elder Odinga and his allies wanted the rule changed saying the method would be too costly. Mr Matiba, on the other hand, said he was ready to finance the party primary.
But Mr Odinga’s allies said there was a high chance that the exercise would be infiltrated by Kanu supporters.
That standoff resulted in a split of the party which saw Mr Matiba and secretary general Martin Shikuku leave with the original certificate and brand themselves Ford-Asili. Mr Odinga and his allies formed Ford-Kenya.
The fate of Ford was one the younger Odinga will hope ODM avoids; a party which appeared the overwhelming favourite to win the presidency in the multiparty elections of 1992 was easily defeated by President Moi who benefited from the divisions in the opposition.
