Raila Odinga inability to keep partners dims his star

In the run-up to the 2007 elections, Opposition leader Raila Odinga assembled what was easily the most potent team in Kenya’s electoral history. The Pentagon, as it came to be known, comprised Musalia Mudavadi, William Ruto, Joe Nyaga, Najib Balala and Raila himself. Charity Ngilu joined them later.

With Odinga as the head of the all-star team, they went to the elections confident of a win. They had captured the attention of a nation hungry for change.

The expectation was so high that when Samuel Kivuitu, the then chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya, announced that incumbent President Mwai Kibaki had won a second term, the nation plunged into chaos.

In the negotiations that followed the violence, Odinga became prime minister with control of about half the government. With ODM having majority seats in Parliament and the speaker coming from their side, Odinga was set to play a key role in the new coalition government.

The formidable ODM alliance, however, was to be short-lived. Differences between Odinga and Ruto emerged soon after the government was formed.

The arrival in Nairobi of Mr Louis Moreno Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), underlined the difficult days ahead. It was to test Odinga’s management skills to the limit. Two of his key allies – Ruto, the Deputy Party Leader and Henry Kosgey, the ODM chairman – were among six high profile Kenyans named by Ocampo as bearing the greatest responsibility for the violence.

But there were other areas of disagreement between Odinga and Mr Ruto. They included distribution of government positions, eviction of people from the Mau forest and attempts to clip Ruto’s wings apparently to forestall his ambitions.

By the time of the 2013 General Election, none of the original pentagon members was with Raila. Ruto, Balala and Ngilu had teamed up with Mr Uhuru Kenyatta to form the Jubilee Alliance which went on to win the elections. Nyaga also threw his support behind Uhuru’s Jubilee while Mudavadi went it alone running for President on the Amani National Congress ticket.

As a politician, Odinga has many things going for him. He has led and brought much political change to this country. He has the staying power and has the incredible capacity to shape the national agenda. But his ability to motivate and keep his team members working towards a common vision has been weak.

He hasn’t been good at nurturing alternative leaders, either. As I write this, there are rumours of cracks within CORD with an alleged MoU between him and coalition partner Mr Kalonzo Musyoka being the source of much friction.