Lessons for politicians from the life of a man who should have been president of Kenya
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I have always been fascinated by Raila Odinga. It was therefore a big shock to me to hear of his death on October 15. Raila towered above Kenyan politics like a colossus. I always wished for him to have a chance to become Kenya's president. He never did. In that sense, he falls in the category of Chief Abafemi Awolowo, the legendary Nigerian politician whom I think was cheated by history to lead that country. Both men had leftist leanings. But unlike Awolowo, who was doctrinaire, Raila was a pragmatist. While Awolowo tended to hold onto his ideological guns, Raila was always willing to negotiate and compromise with his opponents.
It is the pragmatist in Raila that made him a statesman who held Kenya together. He saw himself as seeking to introduce progressive politics into the governance of Kenya. He felt his country is dominated by the rich, who rig public policy to favor their interests. He always argued that the top politicians in Kenya are those whose parents and now even grandparents were the founding leaders of that country. He believed his mission was to political shift power from the privileged few to the underprivileged majority in Kenya. Yet he too was from that privileged class, his father having been the first vice president of independent Kenya.
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It is this contradiction that gave Raila his enormous power and helped stabilize Kenyan politics. At critical moments in history, Kenya came close to being torn asunder by class and ethnic strife. At each of these moments, Raila demonstrated extraordinary political skill and maturity of judgement, pulling that country from the brink. It is most likely that he won elections for the presidency twice - in 2007 and in 2017. Twice he was cheated but he never became bitter. Instead, he was always willing to meet, negotiate, compromise and even work with those who robbed him of the presidency. And he did all this without losing his political base.
This set Raila apart from most politicians but most especially those of Uganda. Take the example of Dr Kizza Besigye and Robert Kyagulanyi hereinafter referred to as Bobi Wine. Besigye has been a towering politician in Uganda: teargassed, beaten, imprisoned and charged with rape, terrorism, treason etc. It is the mark of his deep commitment to his principles that he has refused to be silenced or cowed. I always felt that this sacrifice has given him enormous political capital to reach out across the political divide and compromise with President Yoweri Museveni.
In my personal conversations and in my media interviews with him, Besigye has said he fears to make such gestures because his base would desert him. A man strong enough to stand up to Museveni's brutality has been cowardly to stand up to his radical extremist base, to which he became hostage. I always tried to excuse him, believing that this may be because Besigye, unlike Raila, lacked a loyal ethnic base. Then came Bobi Wine. He has a loyal ethnic base but like Beisgye, he seems hostage to it, allowing it to dictate his behavior instead of him leading it.
Uganda is stable because Museveni has always had a commanding political lead, but most importantly because he has effective personal control of the military, police and security apparatus. Otherwise closely contested electoral outcomes could have turned into civil war. Kenya is stable because Raila always had the courage to use his political capital to cool down the tempers of his political base despite obvious electoral malpractice. For instance, after the 2017 elections, he went to court, and the election was annulled. But the repeat of the campaign generated risky political temperatures that Raila pulled out because he clearly understood any outcome would lead to more violence and leave the country worse off.
What set Raila above most politicians was his capacity to place the interests of his country above his personal ambition. It is ironic that at times many of his critics accused him of the exact opposite. At every critical moment when Kenya was sharply polarized, Raila found the wherewithal to talk to his opponents and reach some compromise. Hence, even though he never became president, he made all Kenyan presidents depend on his political capital and skill to govern. His willingness to work with any president was both intriguing and illuminating.
After the 1997 elections, which he lost to President Daniel arap Moi, Raila entered a "cooperation" agreement with KANU and joined the cabinet. Yet Moi had jailed Raila for eight years, tortured him and even kept him in solitary confinement. Later his NDP merged with KANU, and he was elected its secretary general. Later he fell out with Moi and split KANU. He helped form a united opposition movement. When the united opposition couldn't agree on a presidential candidate, Raila literally hoisted Mwai Kibaki to the position that defeated KANU in the 2002 presidential election.
Raila later fell out with Kibaki, organized opposition to a constitutional referendum organized by the government, defeated the government. He built a new opposition coalition that won the 2007 presidential election with William Ruto as his running mate. Cheated, he accepted to work with Kibaki as prime minister when post-election violence pushed Kenya to the brink. In 2012, he ran for the presidency against Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto, repeating it in 2017. After that, he allied with Uhuru against Ruto in the 2022 elections. But after bitter fights, he made peace with Ruto, and they became allies again. Up until his death, Raila was a stabilizing factor to Ruto's presidency.
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That was Raila. Without ever becoming president, he always provided presidents with the necessary backbone to govern. That made him influential. He demonstrated that one can meaningfully impact the destiny of a nation and be a statesman without being a president. That the power to shape and influence events does not necessarily come from a job, however coveted, but from the role one chooses. The crowds that thronged JKIA to welcome his body and the presence of every major political figure at his home to pay him homage confirm this. Raila's life teaches us that we do not have to be in State House to contribute to the stability and prosperity in our countries. That in our diverse roles, we have enormous power and capacity to shape and influence the destinies of our countries. But this is only possible when we place our visions for our countries above our personal desires for particular jobs in the state.
