The unravelling of Narc and the Mou thorn

It is a little-remarked fact that during the 2002 campaigns, the National Rainbow Coalition’s leaders hardly mentioned the existence of a pre-election pact between them.

There had been a public signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding at the Hilton Hotel, Nairobi. but the version signed before the cameras did not offer details of how power would be shared between leaders when they clinched power. The real MoU was signed a few hours after the Hilton function, when the Narc heavyweights retreated to Nairobi Club.

There were good reasons why Narc leaders avoided talk of an MOU in all their public rallies. The main candidates in the race, Narc’s Mwai Kibaki and Kanu’s Uhuru Kenyatta, were both Kikuyu. Narc strategists feared that if it emerged that Mr Kibaki had signed a deal to share power with Mr Raila Odinga, as the MoU required, Kanu could successfully argue in Kikuyuland that Mr Kibaki would be a puppet serving the whims of Mr Odinga, who hails from the historical rivals of the Kikuyu, the Luo.

Puppet glove

Kanu, in fact, tried this tactic. On the eve of the elections, posters were distributed in parts of Nairobi depicting a giant image of Mr Odinga holding Mr Kibaki essentially in a puppet glove. The attempt at propaganda fell flat, possibly because the MoU had not really featured seriously as an issue in the campaign due in part to the Narc leaders reluctance to talk about it.

Yet, in political circles, the MoU was an open secret. It was a well known fact that Mr Kibaki had agreed to appoint a Prime Minister upon taking power. It was well established that the man to take this post was Mr Odinga. He was the acknowledged leader of the Narc campaign, at the time the sleekest and most effective political operation the nation had seen.

When Mr Kibaki was involved in an accident and was flown to London for treatment, Mr Odinga took charge and energetically led the alliance’s leaders in their campaign swings around the country.

Even when Mr Kibaki returned, Mr Odinga remained the focal point of the Kibaki-for-President team. On October 14, 2002, he delivered what American political analysts would call a game-changing performance. Kibaki tosha (Kibaki is enough), he declared, in a moment that gave the campaign the momentum that swept Kanu out of power after 40 years.

When victory was achieved, there was little doubt that it was the result of a joint effort between Mr Kibaki, Mr Odinga and the other leaders of the alliance’s top organ, the Summit, a multi-ethnic coalition of politicians. But the moment he entered State House, Mr Kibaki’s allies from the Mt Kenya region rallied to exclude Narc leaders who were not Kikuyu or Meru.

Turned away

Rumours surfaced that Mr Odinga had been turned away at the gates of State House. More whispers emerged indicating Mr Odinga’s nominees for Cabinet appointments, which were to be shared 50:50 according to the Nairobi Club MoU, had been disregarded.

The complaints from Mr Odinga’s Liberal Democratic Party were soon reported and it became clear that the Narc leaders were in an unhappy marriage. Mr Odinga and his allies understood they had been short-changed and were considered guests in a government where real power lay in the Mt Kenya circle.

They served in government but were essentially in opposition to Mr Kibaki from the first few weeks of January, 2003. The trashing of the MoU directly led to the divisive constitutional referendum of 2005. It helped create the anti-Kibaki alliance of 2012, which was essentially an anti-Kikuyu coalition.

The MoU debacle set the stage, ironically, for the formation of the grand coalition last year on the basis of the MoU signed at Nairobi Club in 2002. If the MoU had been respected when Narc came to power, it might have saved the nation all the lives and treasure lost in the five years before Mr Kofi Annan emerged from power-sharing talks between Mr Kibaki and Mr Odinga on February 28, 2008 to announce to the nation, “We have a deal”.