Early last month, ODM leader Raila Odinga left the country to attend the Africa Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He would be away for a week at a time when the political fervour in the country was rising rapidly. Still, he left.

As the High Representative for Infrastructure at the AU, we should expect more breaks from the campaign trail for Raila as he attends to regional and international duties.

His departure triggered wild speculations with his critics opining that the rigorous and gruelling campaigns had taken a heavy toll on him. They pointed out that at 77, the former Prime Minister could not easily keep up with his relatively younger opponents in rival coalitions.

He needs regular breaks, they said happily.

The truth is Raila Odinga does not need to keep up with anyone. The reason has little to do with age. Over the decades he has been in politics, he has weaved political strategies and created deep-rooted networks that guarantee he can run a phenomenally successful campaign that does not depend on his presence. In Kenya, he is the only presidential candidate in the 2022 election with the capacity to maintain the excitement in his campaigns while he tends to international matters.

This remains his singular speciality.

Way back in 2014, a year after the first heated election under the current constitution, Raila took a three-month break in the US. During that 90-day sabbatical, his partners in CORD and their networks consistently fanned the fires he had lit to the consternation of the young Jubilee administration. The 2013 campaign energy never waned; if anything, it kept increasing and spreading through the country like a slow-burning bushfire.

The acme came on his return when he arrived at a rapturous welcome by thousands of his supporters with chants of ‘Baba, while you were away. It was like Raila never left at all. For days later, Kenya’s Twitter was ungovernable.

At 77, Raila has retained this ability. His short stint in Addis did nothing to slow down his campaign juggernaut. Strategic teams were deployed across many counties to keep Azimio fires burning. From Western to Coast to Eastern and Nairobi, the teams managed to draw impressive crowds despite Raila’s absence.

It takes exceptional skills and seamless coordination to achieve success in the level that a presidential candidate can take occasional breaks without compromising the momentum of his overall campaign.

This is a strategy United Democratic Alliance (UDA) needs to borrow urgently the party hopes to weather the relentless onslaught launched by Azimio and allied supporters.

It requires little deductive reason to see UDA’s existence is wholly dependent on Deputy President William Ruto. Since it gained form and shape, he has been the de-facto engine that drives and sustains this party As a consummate politician, gifted speaker and shrewd tactician, the deputy president is also endowed with tremendous amounts of energy. He can have several rallies in a single day and have others the next.

While this might appear like an asset to his legion of adoring supporters, it is an incredible threat to the well-being of the party and his campaign at large. The absence of autonomous but coordinated robust campaign units in UDA ranks implies that the success of any campaign rally entirely depends on whether the deputy president will be present or not.

Deputy President is the only politician in UDA with enough charisma and charm to draw sizeable crowds for rallies. All others are insignificant cogs who bask in his presence and address crowds he has pulled. This scenario of political parasitism presents the risk of early burnout for Ruto as he is stretched too thin.

Covering 47 counties and hundreds of sub-counties calls for enormous resources, dedicated teams and extensive political networks.  While UDA might not be lacking in some of these factors, a grave miscalculation was made. In their zeal to aggressively market Deputy President as their candidate, UDA legislators accidentally transformed him into the golden calf of their political rallies.

He brings crowds. In absence, there are no rallies to speak about. Cases abound. Johnstone Muthama, former Machakos Senator, is the UDA chairperson. He can barely make a blip in the lower Eastern having been eclipsed by the three governors. In Coast, the Kingi-Joho-Samboja trinity has pushed UDA out. In Western, DAP-K and Oparanya’s team have reduced ANC’s Mudavadi and Ford Kenya’s Wetangula into mere spear-carriers in Kenya’s political epic. In the Central region, UDA MPs must rely on their candidate to shine in their constituencies.

It will be very interesting to see if UDA will manage to stage a single successful rally while William Ruto will be away for his Europe and US tour.

As of now, Azimio does not need its presidential candidate to be present for Raila’s campaign juggernaut to roar but UDA does.