The untold story: Why Nasa’s election plot flopped

Nasa leader Raila Odinga addressing a public rally during the 2017 campaign period. [File, Standard]

Kenya’s 2017 General Election was unprecedented and bitterly fought. If Uhuru Kenyatta lost, he would be the country’s first one-term President. A win by NASA, the unlikely coalition of tribes and candidates assembled by Raila Odinga, seemed a real possibility. Journalist JOHN ONYANDO, who served in the Opposition campaign, tells the inside story of Raila’s election machine in his book Kenya: The Failed Quest for Electoral Justice. In the first of a three-part series, he tells of the internal chaos and political surprises within NASA and how the coalition nearly lost its evidence for the Supreme Court petition

Every election in a country’s life is important, but Kenya’s August 2017 polls, which came at a time of national crises on multiple fronts, were by far the most consequential Kenyans have had to take part in. The elections were utterly mishandled by the two main parties, Jubilee and NASA. They went to the polls with wrong notions about what they would achieve.