Raila’s last stab must renew hope among a frustrated electorate

Raila Odinga hands in his presidential nomination bundles to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) today. As he does so, he will probably want to remember that he is going out to ask for votes from an electorate that is ahistorical.

The voter has no memory of Kenya’s time meridian. And he cares little for the fabled Second Liberation, Raila’s trump card. He must, therefore, repackage himself for a national constituency in love with its collective amnesia. Kenyans don’t know their story and they don’t want to.

When in 1989 Francis Fukuyama published his famous essay, The end of history and the last man, he was not thinking of our kind of loss of memory. He only thought that Western liberal democracy had reached the highest point possible. It would spread to places like Kenya where people, remembering history, would consciously vote for good government. People like Raila would count on their story to propel them to electoral high office.

Fukuyama should have known better, and Raila should know better still. For, what has been Raila’s journey to the present, where he is now the presidential candidate for the National Supper Alliance (NASA)? Raila burst into the national limelight rather abruptly. He arrived in the wake of the 1982 coup attempt against the Kanu Government.

Kenyans read in the daily press that Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s son, Raila Odinga, had been arrested in relation to the coup. Nothing much was known about him in political circles. Many whispered that the arrest must have been part of the state’s attempt to silence his father, a thorn in the government’s flesh. A short-lived thawing of relations between Jaramogi and Kanu had fallen through when in April 1981 Jaramogi derisively referred to Mzee Kenyatta as “a land grabber.” He was sacked from his new job as chairman of the National Cotton Board.

Essential networks

Jaramogi was temporarily beaten, but not bowed. He continued to call the shots in Luo Nyanza. In Bondo, however, William Odongo Omamo meanwhile won a by-election occasioned by the incumbent, John Hezekiah Ougo, stepping down so that Jaramogi could go to Parliament. Kanu refused to clear any other candidate to run against Omamo, thereby handing to him the seat, unopposed.

Jaramogi’s efforts to form a second political party at this time were thwarted. Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Charles Njonjo, and Finance Minister Mwai Kibaki, bulldozed a motion through Parliament, making Kenya a de jure one party state, within a single afternoon of legislation.

The Opposition’s man of the moment was Jaramogi and not any one of his children. Raila’s emergence as a state guest was therefore surprising. Arbitrary arrests seemed normal in that age, nevertheless, and this was understood to be just one more of them. In the fullness of time, however, Raila would become an underground organiser and mobiliser against Kanu. He would go on to be detained three times – in 1982, 1989 and 1991 – for a total of seven years. He would flee into exile to avoid further arbitrary punishment and return at the dawn of political pluralism.

The rest is history, mostly forgotten. Regardless, Raila now straddles the national landscape like the colossus. He is a household name, having run for President three times -- in 1997, 2007 and 2013. His Kibaki Tosha call in 2002 brought Mwai Kibaki to power before a bitter falling out in 2003, with a horrific violent climax in the post-election situation in 2007-08.

With the exception of few political players in the country today, he has been in and out of partnership with virtually everyone who counts, a factor that made him a clear first among equals in NASA. Indeed, it is difficult to think of who has never been in partnership with him – including the present President and the two previous ones, plus all their deputies.

While pundits placed their bets on a possible Mudavadi-Kalonzo ticket as an exciting and fresh possibility, it is Raila who has the flag. He is believed to have deeper pockets and the essential networks, at home and away, to give President Kenyatta a run for his electoral money. His following in the electorate is also believed to be bigger than that of any of his Pentagon partners.

That said, a tough assignment still lies ahead. The messaging in NASA is commonplace. Nothing excites about them. Their common refrain is about Jubilee, which is rather obvious and trite. The ability to evoke hope seems to have escaped him. His handlers must be bold enough to tell him to refrain from sounding like a tired, grumpy old man with nothing new to say.

Noble dream

He must accept to be repackaged as a charismatic elder statesman with a noble dream for Kenya. I will say this again, Raila and NASA must paint beautiful pictures of a super deal between the leaders and the people. It must be about a super deal for a super nation, super citizens of a super cosmos. A lot of Jubilee bashing and appalling dancing will not bring new votes.

Then Raila must address internal conflict and discontent in strongholds. He cannot wish this away. It is important how he handles independent candidates and those running on small parties. There is a political cost to running them down just as there is to embracing them without tack. He must carry along their supporters without upsetting, or losing, his party nominees and their supporters.

A dizzyingly good message of hope and looking irresistibly good is what must occupy him, away from feats of anger against independents and Jubilee. His single most important assignment is to sound good, look good and make people feel good about the prospect of voting for him.

Finally, he must protect the vote. It is pointless to keep crying out that your goats have been stolen. If you suspect that there are goat thieves out there, you secure your animals.

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