For close to a year, ODM leader Raila Odinga has kept Kenyans guessing about his political future amidst whispers that he was President Uhuru Kenyatta’s preferred successor.
This has been a stark contrast to the Raila of yore who never missed an opportunity to announce to the world his burning ambition to ascend to the country’s top seat.
The decision to hold his cards close to his chest over his 2022 plans is, however, typical of a man who has been nicknamed by his supporters as an Enigma, Tinga, Baba or Agwambo.
From his school days to detention after the 1982 coup attempt against President Daniel arap Moi, Raila, 76, has remained a mysterious figure in almost all spheres of life.
Raila evokes mixed emotions in Kenya: He is loved and loathed in equal measure. No politician, besides the late Moi, divides opinion like him.
To his supporters, Raila is a democrat who has sacrificed a lot in his fight against dictatorship. But his nemesis, such as Deputy President William Ruto, see him as a scheming and selfish person, who will do anything to ascend to power.
The journey that seems to have started on March 9, 2018, with his famous “Handshake” with President Kenyatta appears to have reached its climax with his declaration today to run for the presidency again in next year’s election.
Though it had been expected by his supporters that he would be on the presidential ballot, Raila himself always met questions about his 2022 plans with ambiguity.
“My Handshake with my brother Uhuru is not a gateway to State House but for peace and stability of the nation. All those linking the Handshake to 2022 are ignorant,” Raila was quoted saying as speculation grew about the 2018 deal.
“If you trace Raila’s political path, you clearly notice that he comes up with new survival tactics as the next election approaches. The Handshake has indeed enabled him to remain relevant after the 2017 election and his closeness to the President seems to be working well for him,” says Prof Macharia Munene, a political analyst and a former lecturer at USIU-Africa.
Munene says Raila’s path to 2022 is laced with President Kenyatta’s footprints and it is difficult to separate his bid for the top seat from the latter’s determination to manage his succession.
The former don says Uhuru’s recent remarks in Nakuru, in which he appeared to pour cold water on the perception that Ruto is a front-runner in the presidential race, was a clear indication that Raila was his preferred successor.
Munene says that while the Handshake had propelled Raila into the inner sanctums of power and endeared him to voters in the Mt Kenya region, the same had stopped Ruto from being the automatic heir apparent and turned him into an opposition leader.
Besides President Kenyatta strongly defending the Handshake on several occasions, the camaraderie between him and the opposition leader has always been in open display.
These gestures from the President – who once had unkind words and choice names for his then rival – has energised Raila’s supporters who are convinced Uhuru’s has picked their man as his successor.
Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya, who is one of the two ODM deputy party leaders, says the former PM failed in his previous State House bid because he did not have the “government and State machinery” behind him.
“Sometimes we think that he has won but lost under unclear circumstances. We decided to play it safe. We analysed where we had gone wrong… maybe we didn’t have the government on our side. Maybe government is a major factor in winning the presidential race,” Oparanya said recently during a TV interview.
BBI fall
Oparanya’s sentiments mirror those of Raila’s elder brother, Oburu Oginga, who has been quoted saying that State machinery is vital in the Kenya’s high elections.
The presence of high-profile government officials, such as Cabinet and Principal Secretaries at Raila’s functions since the Handshake, has reinforced talk of the President hand in the ODM leader’s road to the 2022 presidential contest.
Raila has also been a constant feature in presidential functions, besides being accorded high-profile treatment in the country and abroad, thus creating the impression that he holds a stake in government.
As part of the 2022 strategy, Uhuru and Raila initiated the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), whose agenda was to review the government structure and composition to accommodate more interests, besides tackling perennial socio-economic and political problems.
With the fall of the BBI, the two came up with a new strategy: Cooperation between Jubilee and ODM and endearing Raila to the President’s Mt Kenya backyard.
This latter strategy saw several allies of the President such as CSs Fred Matiang’i (Interior), Joe Mucheru (ICT), Peter Munya (Agriculture) and a team of influential businessmen from Central Kenya under the auspices of the Mount Kenya Foundation go out to campaign for Raila.
Accompanied by several of the President’s Jubilee allies such as nominated MP Maina Kamanda, Murang’a Woman Rep Sabina Chege, governors Ndiritu Muriithi (Laikipia), Francis Kimemia (Nyandarua) and Lee Kinyanjui (Nakuru), Raila has made several forays in Central Kenya in a bid to win a region that has previously been distrustful of him.
And on Wednesday, the Mt Kenya Foundation, which brings together influential businessmen from the region who have in the past played a central role in presidential elections, threw their weight behind Raila.
On Monday, ODM secretary general Edwin Sifuna said the government has been closely involved in the planning today’s Azimio La Umoja convention, that pundits say is expected to come up with a broad-based alliance to face Ruto in 2022.
“Though Raila remains the face of Azimio La Umoja, the main architecture of the whole thing is President Kenyatta. The CSs and MKF cannot endorse Raila without the President’s hand,” says Prof Munene.
And as Raila unveils his latest political platform this morning, he cements his record as the Kenyan politician who has changed political alliances the most times.
Interestingly, each time Raila has moved, he has always fashioned himself as the face of reform.