Raila : Political superstar who keeps winning without winning

Postcolonial Kenya has had colorful politicians, among them being Jomo Kenyatta who believed in prioritizing politics over other concerns. He started his political adventures in the 1920s, acquired international and Pan-Africanist repute in the 1930s, condoned anti-colonial oaths in the 1940s, and had a mysterious role in the Mau Mau Movement.

His greatest recruit was a Nyanza businessman called Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He emerged from jail, with a title of ‘Mzee’, as Prime Minister and then President in the 1960s; Jaramogi was close to him.

Next to Kenyatta is Jaramogi’s second son, Raila Odinga. Raila excels in applying Kenyatta’s principle of political expediency. Like Kenyatta, Raila is a mystery, ‘studied’ in Europe, and served time in the cooler. Knowing how and when to attract attention, he distinguishes himself as a perpetual side-switching deal maker. He, for instance, defended his role in the 1982 coup attempt by claiming that his real intention was to stop Charles Njonjo from mounting a coup; he thus probably started the Njonjo ‘msaliti’ saga.

In 1994, he inherited Jaramogi’s political base in the Lake region but lost the Ford-Kenya leadership battle to Michael Wamalwa Kijana and James Orengo. He then reengineered himself as leader of LDP and, in 1997, joined other Members of Parliament in the IPPG deal to derail what Kiraitu Murungi termed ‘revolution’.

Moi convinced ‘elected’ MPs to gang up in IPPG or lose power to such ‘unelected’ activists as Kivutha Kibwana. Like Moi and other elected MPs, therefore, Raila wanted to diffuse the power of what Moi had called “Haka Kamkamba.”

Raila contested the 1997 Samuel Kivuitu-supervised presidential election and after coming third to Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki, he cut an anti-Kibaki deal with Moi in 1998 known as Koperesen that lasted till 2002. He also decisively dealt with potential leadership challenges from Orengo and Peter Anyang Nyong’o who had supported Charity Ngilu; both men lost their seats.

The purpose of the Moi-Raila deal, since Moi knew how to win, was to combine their numbers in Parliament in order to amend the constitution to remove the two-term limit that Moi had imposed in 1992 and to create a post of a non-elected Prime Minister, possibly for Raila. Subsequently, Raila served as a minister, told Kibaki to forget the presidency, and took JJ Kamotho’s job as KANU secretary general.

Simeon Nyachae, aspiring to succeed Moi, rebelled and stopped Parliament from amending the Constitution for Moi and Raila. With the Parliamentary route blocked, Moi annoyed Raila by choosing Uhuru Kenyatta as his successor. Uhuru retained the support of William Ruto, his dot.com ally.

Leading an uprising within KANU, funded by Nyachae, Raila signed two MOUs with both Nyachae and Kibaki. Dumping Nyachae, he joined Kibaki’s winning NAK, which became NARC and walloped both Uhuru’s KANU and Nyachae’s Ford-People in 2002.

The Kibaki-Raila alliance was short-lived. They quarreled over appointments and Bomas constitutional reforms that led to the 2005 referendum acrimony.

Donors, angry at Kibaki’s independence of mind, supported Raila and helped turn Bomas into a circus, contesting different visions of power distribution. Although they compromised on a referendum proposal touching on two things, land matters and creating an unelected prime minister position, they still quarreled on whether the unelected premier would have more powers than the elected president. The final referendum document proposed a prime minister with fewer powers than the president and angered Raila and the donors.

Two perceptions about the referendum subsequently emerged: whether to have a new constitution or to continue with the old one. Kivuitu gave them symbols of banana for those who accepted the proposal and orange for those rejecting it. There then developed a well-oiled donor-promoted belief that the referendum was about Kibaki rather than the constitution.

The Conceptual West diplomats and CKRC Chair Yash Pal Ghai then loudly demanded that Kibaki leave office if Kenyans rejected the draft. The other side, including Kibaki, believed that the referendum was about Kenyans deciding whether or not they wanted to ditch the existing constitution and adopt a new one. For them, it was not about removing Kibaki or changing the existing governing structure.

While the Orange campaign had a donor-funded secretariat, the Banana side was lackadaisical, hardly had a secretariat, was internally divided, and seemingly was unwilling to win. When the votes were in, therefore, Kibaki was quick to announce that Kenyans had rejected the proposal and added that there was no constitutional vacuum. Instead of leaving office as the donors and Ghai wanted, Kibaki proceeded to reorganize his cabinet.

Raila and Kivuitu also won big in the 2005 referendum. Although the ‘no’ side had a coalition of players including Uhuru, Ruto, and Kalonzo Musyoka, it was Raila who won the biggest and believed that all the no votes were his.

Kivuitu won in Raila’s eyes because of the way he conducted the referendum. With someone having rushed to the registrar of political parties to reserve the name Orange Democratic Movement, ODM, two ODM political parties emerged, one led by Kalonzo and the other by Raila.

Uhuru, a prominent ODM founder, led his KANU into Kibaki’s new Party of National Unity, PNU, and split from Ruto, his 2002 dot.com ally. While Kalonzo’s ODM fizzled out after the 2007 election, Raila’s ODM made itself felt in Kenyan politics thereby making Raila a force beyond other political forces.

Raila consolidated his base in 2007, creating a ‘PENTAGON’ comprising himself, Joe Nyaga, Musalia Mudavadi, Najib Balala, William Ruto, and Charity Ngilu. Sounding like a military outfit, Raila was the ODM team leader and PENTAGON Commander-in-Chief while Ruto was an effective field commander who hovered over the Rift Valley.

As election-related violence sporadically broke out and Kibaki’s government was unable to contain it, Kivuitu created alternative voting places for the affected areas. Kivuitu had been expected to retire, but, given his ‘good performance’ in the referendum, Raila had stopped him with ‘No Kivuitu, No Election’ chants.

Unlike the sure person that he was in the 2005 referendum, Kivuitu appeared lost, confused, and unable to control electoral events. After protracted confrontations at the KICC, including the night of the count, he announced that Kibaki had narrowly defeated Raila and three things happened. First, violence intensified in some areas, mainly the Rift Valley. Second, the British government demanded that there be real power sharing in Kenya. Third, Kibaki invited Kalonzo to become vice president.

Kenya’s crisis of governance allowed international intervention in the person of Kofi Annan who created a nusu mkate government as the British had demanded. Raila became prime minister and Kibaki remained president. The two produced a Raila-friendly’ 2010 Constitution. Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi demanded to know why donors were harassing Kibaki, the victim.

Second, he created international commissions to investigate two related happenings. First was whether there was vote rigging at KICC, as alleged, the Kriegler Commission, which found no rigging at KICC. Second was the Waki Commission on election violence, which gave Annan names of prominent people in need of additional investigation. Annan passed the names to ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, who vowed to indict equal numbers of PNU and ODM party members, indict the most responsible, and make Kenya an example. He hardly investigated but still indicted politicians Uhuru, Ruto, and Kosgei, broadcaster Joshua Sang and civil servants Francis Muthaura, General Ali. Since they were political indictments, they lowered the prestige of the ICC.

Raila had collaborated with Kibaki to produce a ‘friendly’ 2010 Constitution which would ensure a Raila presidency but since it did not work, Raila repeatedly showed his political re-engineering prowess.

Voters ignored donor warnings not to elect UHURUTO and voted against what Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni termed imperialism. In the 2017 election Raila again lost to UHURUTO but Chief Justice David Maraga ordered an election repeat on account of procedure but Raila still lost.

Raila then took advantage of an Uhuru-Ruto disagreement to side with Uhuru against Ruto and then convinced Uhuru that peace in Kenya depended on Raila’s goodwill rather than on adherence to the constitution.

The 2022 presidential election pitied Raila against Ruto and Raila barely lost because, despite having the support of Uhuru’s ‘system’, his side blundered.

He still found a way of ‘eating’ in Ruto’s government. He did this by helping Ruto to ditch Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and to diffuse the 2024 Gen Z uprising. Gachagua, in his abrasive struggle to be accepted as Mount Kenya’s Muthamaki, had ignored warnings that Raila and Ruto would get together at his expense. He also let his mouth repeatedly display immaturity, not knowing the occasions to say what.

Raila is a good student of Jomo Kenyatta’s school of political expediency. He mobilizes ‘masses’ to make him an ‘eating’ partner to those who defeat him. He is a political superstar, assertive and ready to sacrifice others to get what he desires. No other politician has had that rare ‘gift’ of repeatedly winning by losing.