It is hard to overstate how the former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s decision to endorse President Uhuru Kenyatta’s second term in office has impacted on our politics. The opposition, within and outside of Parliament, has all but disappeared. For all intents and purposes, Kenya is back to the era of a grand coalition.
As a result, the government has since March 2018 been an oversize coalition prone to all manner of internal divisions. This explains the overt unease signaled by Deputy President William Ruto at rallies. He knows that the entry of Raila into the Kraal dilutes his influence within Jubilee, and risks the possibility of quashing his chances of becoming president in 2022.
The smart money still ought to be on Ruto becoming Kenya’s fourth president. If he chooses to work for it. Unlike Raila or Kenyatta, Ruto is one of the more disciplined politicians on the national stage. His national appeal is second only to Raila’s. And with a crafty campaign against the establishment, he could galvanise his base and spoilers to stop a potential Kenyatta-Moi-Odinga juggernaut. It goes without saying that achieving such a feat will not be easy. Kenya’s sociology of politics is evolving fast – with wananchi finally beginning to make concrete connections between their everyday lives and vote choices.
Raila may not be the next president either. If his political career is anything to go by, he will most likely snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Perhaps the best example of this Odinga-syndrome is his embrace of Kenyatta’s recent tax increases on Kenyans. Instead of siding with the people – even if just as part of a Janus-faced political strategy – Raila became Kenyatta’s hype man. He is, in effect, part of Jubilee’s communication strategy. And just like that, he will be perceived to be an incumbent over the next four years – without necessarily enjoying the perks of incumbency (indeed, sometimes it seems like he is more of an incumbent than Ruto!). Does that remind you of the nusu mkate government ahead of 2013?
The clamor for power in 2022 continues to distract Raila and Ruto from the important tasks of improving the lives of people and strengthening our institutions. While the economy has been growing at over 5 per cent in recent years, the fact of the matter is that life is getting harder for most Kenyans.
One thing Raila can do for future generations of Kenyans would be to strengthen our associational capacity to address our problems. Given the complexity of the challenges we face, we will need well-organised forms of political expression and the ability to succinctly articulate the policy options available to Kenyans.
These are tasks that only well-organised parties will be able to achieve. As he nears the twilight of his political career, Raila would do Kenyans much good by ensuring that his rapprochement with Kenyatta and whatever political settlement emerges out of it will only serve to strengthen political parties. We need strong parties that survive elections and leadership changes. The world will not end with the 2022 election. It is high time political leaders started acting as such.
- The writer is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University
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