PM to face Uhuru and Ruto head-on as elections near

The dragging of President Kibaki’s name into allegations that Prime Minister Raila Odinga was working with foreigners to engineer the trial of rivals at the International Criminal Court is the reason he called for the arrest of Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP Wiliam Ruto.

Enquiries by the Sunday Nation revealed that Mr Odinga was infuriated by the allegation by MPs allied to the two suspects that he was part of a plot to transfer President Kibaki to The Hague-based court when he leaves office.

According to his advisors, Mr Odinga reckons that the Kibaki claim would not only antagonise the Central Kenya bloc he has been wooing, but also cast doubts about the sincerity of his relationship with his coalition partner of four years.

Mr Salim Lone, an advisor and confidant of Mr Odinga said the PM saw the allegations as an attempt to package him as an untrustworthy dirty schemer.

“That he is part of a plot designed to put President Kibaki in the ICC dock after he leaves the presidency is the most scurrilous accusation you can possibly make against the Prime Minister,” said Mr Lone.

“Up to this time not a shred of evidence had been offered to show how Mr Odinga took Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto to the ICC. In any event, it was they and their allies who chose the ICC, so the PM did not need to address the allegations seriously. But to escalate this propaganda through a (forged) document and draw in the President as a target went just too far and required that the PM respond strongly,” he said.

Some say the move completely alienates whatever support he had in Rift Valley and Mount Kenya region, the political backyards of his two nemesis. Kirinyaga Central MP Joseph Gitari said Mr Odinga’s statement was a blow to the inroads he has been trying to make in the region.

His utterances

“People from Central Kenya are peace-loving and so you will not expect any ugly incident targeted at the PM. But due to his utterances he will lack the audience.

You saw when he came to Kirinyaga recently for a church fund raising and he was not received by any MP or councillor,” said Mr Gitari, a supporter of Mr Kenyatta.

However, Prof Macharia Munene, a lecturer at the United States International University says whatever support Mr Odinga had in the two regions was negligible in the first place.

“His project to woo the Kikuyu to replace the lost Kalenjin vote was not going anywhere, and it would make no sense in putting a lot of hopes in it,” he says.

Mr Odinga has been on an all-out drive to woo Central Kenya voters who have traditionally been suspicious and resentful of him. And his supporters in the region supported him saying he was calling the suspects’ bluff.

Prof Munene says that by casting himself as a champion of the rule of law, Mr Odinga has a good chance of attracting the support of the middle class across all ethnic groups who are more receptive of his message.

Former Ntonyiri MP Maoka Maore and Mr Ngunjiri Wambugu, the head of the Change Associates Trust, say Mr Odinga was standing up against what they called forces of impunity.

“The forces of impunity were taking shape and charge of the national agenda. Those of us who believe in reforms and see Raila as our captain were getting worried about the monopoly of the Uhuru-Ruto claims,” said Mr Maore.

“The suspects and their supporters had pushed Mr Odinga to the wall. Their strategy has been to milk the ICC conversation to the last drop and their politics revolves around fighting the PM, who has been playing the statesman by restraining himself from commenting,” said Mr Wambugu, who has been pushing for a dialogue between Central Kenya and the rest of the country.

“The Prime Minister was firing a warning shot across the bows. He is telling his opponents that he is ready to confront their propaganda word for word,” he told Sunday Nation.

Mr Maore, however, thinks Mr Odinga’s statement was directed at the President who the Raila campaigns see as the protector of the suspects and to distance the PM from investigations into the post-election violence.

“The entire evidence to the ICC never came from Mr Odinga. It came from the National Security Intelligence Service, Kenya National Human Rights Commission and the civil society, none of which the PM controls,” said the former Ntonyiri MP, who is positioning himself as Mr Odinga’s point man in the Meru region.

According to Mr Ngunjiri, there has only been one “political voice” on the ICC proceeding — the crusade against the prosecution of Mr Kenyatta and Ruto at The Hague-based court.

“We now have two voices: the pro-ICC campaign embodied by the Prime Minister pitted against the anti-Hague wave inspired by the Kenyatta-Ruto axis.”

Mr Lone says in his strategy, Mr Odinga wants to maintain a close working relationship with the President. “There are times he has differed strongly with him, such as on the judicial nominations last year, but he has never once attacked President Kibaki as a person.”

This week, Mr Odinga appeared to have removed the gloves and confronted the two suspects who are facing crimes against humanity charges at The Hague.

This was uncharacteristic of the PM who has been mostly cautious on the delicate matter. Those familiar with the PM’s thinking say that the country is likely to see a markedly more abrasive PM in fending off propaganda by opponents and while articulating his agenda.

And to fend off any propaganda, Mr Odinga has authorised members of the secretariat to respond rapidly to any allegations made against him as the campaign conversation moves to the home stretch.

Members of the Rapid Response Secretariat include former Kenya Ports Authority Managing Director Brown Ondego, veteran journalist Sarah Elderkin, former PS James Ongwae, literary scholar Odera Outa, former Thika mayor Mumbi Ng’aru and Mr Hassan Omar, formerly of the human rights commission.

The group is reinforced by the Kikuyus4Raila 2012 led by businessman Peter Kuguru, ODM commissioner for Central Kenya.

While Mr Odinga’s statement was seen in some quarters as eroding what support he still had in Rift Valley and Central Kenya, lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi thinks he succeeded in wresting the agenda from the Ocampo Two.

“In politics being in the front is very important. Remember for the last couple of years he has been on the defensive. Now he is on the offensive forcing the two to respond to him,” he says.

His sentiments were echoed by University of Nairobi political scientist Adams Oloo who added the PM had decided it was campaign time and he was going to fight off perceptions.

“In politics perception is everything. A lie repeated many times can turn out to be truth. Time was running out for him to attack the perceptions that had been peddled by his opponents,” said Dr Oloo.

“From now you will begin seeing two Railas: Raila the PM and Raila the campaigner. He will be trying to implement policy in Government while letting his secretariat fight campaign wars head-on,” he said.

Mr Lone says the PM has been keen to forge a relationship with President Kibaki and Mr Kenyatta’s Central backyard, persuaded that his presidency would not be comfortable without acceptance from the region.

Meanwhile, Mr Odinga’s comments seem to have momentarily taken the wind out of Mr Mudavadi’s sails. The ODM deputy party leader was enjoying good media attention following his surprise decision to challenge Mr Odinga for the party’s presidential ticket.

So could it be the endgame for a man who even his opponents grudgingly consider the lion of Kenya’s political mass movements? Not quite so, says Mr Onesimus Murkomen, a law lecturer at Moi University and a political commentator. “You have to remember that elections in Kenya are decided in the last three months.”