Clay Muganda
23 March 2008
opinion
Nairobi — For a very long time, the political detractors of Prime Minister-designate Raila Odinga maintained that he was "unelectable."
This notion changed last year during the presidential election campaigns, when opinion polls started showing Mr Odinga - who was contesting on an Orange Democratic Movement ticket - in the lead.
The opinion polls, disputed by his opponents time and again, continued to project him as a strong contender by a big margin, save for once when Mr Mwai Kibaki closed in on him, and again his (Odinga's) opponents had reason to celebrate.
But their celebration was short-lived as, once again, the lead widened, and when Kenyans went to the polls, initial results proved psephologists right as Mr Odinga led the two other contenders.
As the initial results continued to be announced, Mr Odinga's supporters were convinced that he had won and was headed for State House. Pentagon member William Ruto, while addressing supporters in Eldoret two days after the voting, told them that "it was just a matter of hours before Raila Odinga was declared Kenya's fourth President."
But it was not just his supporters alone. Many editors knew it was a "done deal" and many had even briefed journalists to write the profile of Raila Odinga, "Kenya's fourth President."
But they had to hold their pens when results from President Kibaki's strongholds started trickling in and the lead started narrowing, leading to chaotic scenes at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre where the ECK was announcing results from.
Then came the announcement that Mr Kibaki had won and all hell broke loose and the country started burning - literally.
The Enigma
The way the opinion poll results went could be a pointer to how Mr Odinga's life has been - unpredictable. It has had more downs than ups, but he is a resilient schemer, a quality his opponents will agree many of them lack.
When the country was on fire, Mr Odinga figured that if the matter of "stolen elections" was confined to the country's borders, he would lose out. As such, he made good use of the international media, and never in the 44-year history of independent Kenya has the international media focused so much on Kenya.
This tactic paid off and international figures started trooping to Kenya in order to find a solution to the political and humanitarian crisis sparked by the disputed election results.
Mr Odinga played his cards right and even when it was said that his party also rigged elections, the government came out as the bad guy whenever it tried to defend itself over allegations that it rigged elections or that it was using excessive force in restoring calm.
Mr Odinga stuck to his guns that he would only meet Mister Kibaki - as he called President Kibaki then - in the presence of international mediators. And he had his way.
To add insult to the injured image of the government, any international figure who met President Kibaki met him too, yet he was dismissed as a loser, a pretender to the throne who wanted power through the backdoor.
Political affiliations aside, many Kenyan media practitioners will have to admit that either Mr Odinga has learnt the art of (mis)using the media to his advantage, or the person or persons who handle his media and public relations package him well because they understand their product, nay, client - him.
As the title of his biography, Raila Odinga: The Enigma of Kenyan Politics suggests, the man is truly an enigma and just when people thought he had written his political obituary, he managed to rise, like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes, baffling friend and foe alike.
Rise from ashes
Like when he resigned from his parliamentary seat which he had earlier won on a FORD-Kenya ticket to contest under the little-known National Development Party.
He recaptured the Langata seat in a by-election marked by a very low voter turnout, but he made it back to Parliament.
His move from FORD-Kenya was precipitated by wrangles by other members over the control of the party, which was once headed by his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
When he moved to NDP, his foes thought that he was committing political suicide, but in the 1997 General Election, he emerged a strong third in the Presidential Elections, behind Mwai Kibaki of the Democratic Party and the winner, Daniel arap Moi of Kanu.
He beat Kijana Wamalwa of FORD-Kenya and Charity Ngilu of Social Democratic Party. Even though his party did not win many seats outside his native Nyanza Province, its presence was felt in Parliament, with one of its members, Otieno Kajwang, moving a motion of no confidence in the then Vice-President, Prof George Saitoti, over allegations that he was involved in the Goldenberg scandal.
The motion failed, but that did not deter Mr Odinga's party from making its presence felt in Parliament.
Probably by design, or as a matter of a long-term strategy, Mr Odinga started "cooperating" with the ruling party, Kanu, and before the 2002 General Election, NDP merged with Kanu, and he was appointed Minister for Energy in a government he had strongly opposed earlier.
Feared Moi
He was also "elected" the party secretary general, something that caused a lot of acrimony within the party as the long-serving secretary general, Mr Joseph Kamotho, was shunted aside during an exercise where acclamation, rather than the secret ballot, ruled.
But the party was not to be.
In the run-up to the 2002 General Election, Mr Moi chose a political greenhorn, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, as his heir apparent, disregarding other party officials who had also wanted a shot at the presidency on a Kanu ticket.
Despite their protests, Mr Moi stuck to his guns. The self-proclaimed "professor of politics" realised his mistake of forcing Uhuru Kenyatta on his party members when Mr Odinga led a group of long-time Moi loyalists, including Cabinet ministers, out of Kanu to a hastily formed Liberal Democratic Party.
This move endeared him to the public in general and his followers in particular not so much for his radicalism, but his open defiance against the much-feared Moi.
But Mr Odinga should have feared Moi. Or rather, he should have had a reason to, because this was the man under whose rule he was repeatedly detained without trial on suspicion that he was leading an underground movement out to overthrow the government.
Mr Odinga's problems with Moi, or rather, Mr Moi's problems with Raila, started just after the 1982 attempted coup, which was staged by junior officers of the Kenya Air force.
Midas Touch
In the crackdown on the mutineers, Mr Odinga was arrested and jailed for alleged collaboration with the coup plotters who, it was alleged, were to hand over power to him after successfully over-throwing Mr Moi.
He was moved from one jail to another and tortured. When he was eventually freed, he fled the country. Upon his return, he teamed up with the group of "Young Turks" that pushed the Kanu Government into accepting multi-party politics in 1992.
Elective politics
This marked his entry into elective politics and political stardom when he was elected the representative of the cosmopolitan Langata constituency, which houses Kibera - Kenya's biggest slum - where the fanatical support he enjoys compares only with that in his Nyanza home turf.
Labelled an anti-conformist, dictatorial, a party-hopper and a party wrecker who is the anti-thesis to the Midas Touch -- every party he touches disintegrates -- Mr Odinga has always tried to explain himself, saying that he changes parties when he fails to agree with other officials.
His move with a horde of party stalwarts from Kanu prior to the 2002 elections sounded the death knell for the country's oldest party and its fortunes have never been the same.
When he left Kanu for LDP, he teamed up with like-minded politicians from other parties and formed the National Rainbow Coalition, a vehicle which was used to end Mr Moi's and Kanu's 24-year hold on the country's leadership and elective politics.
Proposed constitution
Even though he did not contest the presidency in 2002, Mr Odinga is said to have been the one who endorsed Mr Kibaki as the coalition's presidential candidate.
Ever energetic, Mr Odinga campaigned against Mr Moi, Kanu and Mr Uhuru Kenyatta during the 2002 General Election and when Mr Kibaki emerged the winner, he was rewarded with a ministerial post in the new Narc Government.
Other members of the LDP were also rewarded with Cabinet posts in a government which enjoyed a lot of goodwill from the Kenyan people.
The 2002 elections more or less healed the rift caused by the age-old suspicion between Kenya's biggest tribes -- the Kikuyu and the Luo -- as they ganged up against Mr Moi.
But the party would not last long. When the Odinga faction of Narc disagreed with Mr Kibaki over a Memorandum of Understanding which allegedly stipulated that he was to be the Prime Minister, the fallout loomed large.
It was manifested in the 2005 referendum on the proposed constitution when Mr Odinga led a section of the Cabinet members in beating the Government side. Mr Odinga was again showing his defiance and when Mr Kibaki sacked the whole LDP brigade, Mr Odinga's move towards the opposition began - and it culminated in the forming of a lobby group -- Orange Democratic Movement -- which was later turned into a party, through which he contested the 2007 General Election.
Mr Odinga's political life seems to have gone full circle, and he is eventually getting the post that he "missed" in 2002 after the alleged MOU they had signed was dishonoured.
Mr Muganda is a senior features writer with DRUM Magazine
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