Strange bedfellows: History may yet define Raila, Karua relations

Azimio la Umoja Presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua are flanked by other coalition partners at KICC in Nairobi during the announcement of the running mate on May 16,202. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

The Azimio-One Kenya presidential candidate, Raila Odinga, and his running mate, Martha Karua, make for strange and unlikely bedfellows. They have an interpersonal history that is rich in seasonal love and hate, and similar temperaments that work better when competing with each other than when seeking common goals. Their historical experience with one another could define the character of their possible future government, should Raila’s bid to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta as Kenya’s fifth president bear fruit in the August 9 election. 

In the lead up to the 2013 General Election, a journalist asked Karua, then the Gichugu Member of Parliament, if she would consider teaming up with the ODM leader, as a running mate. The response was crisp and caustic, “I do not share any values with the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. Nor do I admire his politics. In fact, I have been calling upon him to go home together with President (Mwai) Kibaki. Both he and President Kibaki have been totally unable to uproot corruption from within their ranks.”