Kalonzo may beat Jubilee but Raila will ensure Nasa wins

From left: Opposition leaders Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi, Raila Odinga and Moses Wetang'ula display their copies of the coalition agreement for the National Super Alliance at the Okoa Kenya movement's office in Nairobi on February 22, 2017. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • What people need most is jobs, education, easy access to health and affordable food and housing, so they need to hear how the National Super Alliance (Nasa) will provide these and the fundamental frameworks for the overarching principles of inclusion, equity and devolution.

  • Jubilee has not provided any of this in four years.

  • A united Nasa led by Raila Odinga should have no trouble winning.

When the phone rang for the third time in 10 minutes last week, I left the lunch table to take the call. It was a close friend from Nairobi, a staunch Raila Odinga supporter, who wanted to make sure I’d give the former prime minister his message when I met him in New York.

The message was hardly novel: the National Super Alliance (Nasa) would easily triumph in August, but Kalonzo Musyoka would bolt if he was not chosen as the flag-bearer, which could see victory slip out of the opposition’s grasp. My friend wanted me to urge Mr Odinga to make this one last sacrifice for the country, and anoint Mr Musyoka to seal a better Kenyan future.

My friend’s panic wasn’t surprising. This scenario of Nasa losing the election if Mr Odinga is at the head of its ticket has been the stuff of headlines recently, but his demonisation has been the hallmark of Kenya politics for years now – he’s power hungry and will stop at nothing to get to the top. He’s a polarising figure, there’d be violence if he won, so he should be a kingmaker rather than candidate (that was in 2007, but its doing the rounds again now). The government and ruling elites will never allow him to win, so someone else should lead Nasa. But the funniest was last July, when in the epic struggle between Jubilee and Cord for Luhya support, vast crowds turned out for Mr Odinga’s rallies. No problem – he cannot translate crowds into votes!

ONE AIM

The anti-Raila fervour is entirely normal. The world over, all political challengers share one aim: undermine the opposition front-runner. So Mr Odinga is often targeted by government leaders and opposition figures alike. This has taken its toll, but it’s also helped shore up his large base, and cemented his reputation of being such a powerful champion of the common person that the government fears him more than anyone else. Same for the army of corrupt oligarchs and the security and other establishment elites who surround, and owe their fortunes, to the presidency. (As my friend Ndung’u Wainaina tweeted recently, “it is corrupt leaders and elite beneficiaries of corrupt deals who feel most threatened by opposition chief Raila Odinga”).

The selection of the Nasa leader is a pivotal moment in our history as it could mark the first shift of power to a progressive-led coalition, and finally break the hold on Kenya of the continuously reigning group that inherited power at independence in 1963. Nasa supporters must, therefore, make the decision on the most rigorous analysis of which leader provides best hope of victory.

THOROUGHLY DISCREDITED

I am convinced a united Nasa stands an excellent chance of success under Mr Musyoka’s or Mr Mudavadi’s leadership – that is how thoroughly discredited Jubilee is. It embarked on a looting spree from Day One, and refused to put on the brakes even as the election season approached. There is clearly a profound dysfunction at the heart of the presidency, with President Uhuru Kenyatta unable or unwilling to impose even rudimentary order.

This dysfunction has driven ordinary Kenyans into unimaginable deprivations or the underworld, having to scramble every single day to somehow meet their own and their families’ most basic necessities, which have never been so unaffordable. Jubilee has also overseen the evisceration of our economy and laid waste huge numbers of productive enterprises and the jobs they produced. The system is totally broken and has no capacity to perform government’s most basic function of providing basic human security – and Kenyans know that, even in Jubilee’s heartland.

The effort to yank Mr Musyoka from Nasa is at fever pitch, in a bid to disrupt its momentum. Mr Musyoka’s loss would be huge (but not fatal) as he has enormous credibility within Nasa, having courageously stayed within the “opposition wilderness” alongside Mr Odinga, and resisting blandishments and political threats that have also been thrown at Mr Mudavadi, Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho and others. Mr Musyoka also campaigned brilliantly for Cord in 2013, and he is one of Kenya’s least tainted leaders. I cannot see how he would gain more than what Nasa offers him by leaving it if he was not chosen its leader.

ONLY ODINGA

But while Mr Musyoka, as a united Nasa flagbearer, would be able to dispatch President Kenyatta, I believe even more strongly that it’s only Mr Odinga who can ensure victory – and in the first round. The internal polling from the Nasa coordinating group led by Dr David Ndii and other polls provide overwhelming evidence of this.

But there are other crucial reasons as well. We all know that turnout is the key to victory amid the intense dissatisfaction and disaffection of our polarised times. (Hillary Clinton, considered the most qualified candidate in decades to run for the US presidency, lost to Donald Trump, the least qualified candidate with abhorrent views, because she did not enjoy passionate national support, which depressed her turnout.)

Mr Musyoka enjoys passionate support within his own and some other populous regions, but in the key vote-rich Nyanza and Western blocs, Nasa turnout would be significantly reduced without Mr Odinga leading it. Polling aside, this was borne out by provincial voting totals when Mr Musyoka ran in 2007. That year also marked his most unfortunate decision to throw in his lot with President Mwai Kibaki after a tainted election.

IS UNMATCHED

In terms of passionate grass-roots support from outside his own region, Mr Odinga is unmatched by any recent Kenyan leader. That’s because he has always had a clear national, pro-people ideology, which makes him the only major figure who has dared stand for office outside his home region.

Another crucial factor behind the passion for Mr Odinga is the perception he is the one leader with the commitment, the boldness and the personal strengths needed to dismantle our ruthless and deeply-entrenched oligarchic business and security cartels. These groups control much of the nation’s wealth and exercise a stranglehold on people’s democratic and economic aspirations and will not fear someone merely because he or she was elected president. Mr Odinga gets the nod on this because of his long history of resistance against the system. He is, in fact, the only major current leader who has paid an enormous price for his convictions with almost a decade in brutal detention. As President, he would finally have the instrument with which to begin the long-overdue process of cleaning up our utterly corrupted system.

HAS ELUDED

Despite heroic struggles and sacrifices, meaningful change has eluded Kenya as power has stayed within a small group that inherited independence a full half century ago. No other democratic African country has seen that. This reality is uncannily captured in a photograph that shows all our four presidents ceremonially standing next to each other – President Jomo Kenyatta, his Vice-President Moi, Mr Moi’s VP Kibaki and presidential offspring and Mr Kibaki’s Deputy Prime Minister (Uhuru) Kenyatta! I believe that is the only such photograph in the world showing four elected presidents whose reigns would end up spanning 54 years, but hopefully not 59.

If Nasa can stay united, change is around the corner. Nasa needs to transparently select a flagbearer, and immediately mount a vigorous campaign which spells out, over and over again, clear and simple messages about what it stands for and what it will provide our people. Nasa supporters love condemnations of Jubilee’s many depredations, but doing merely that, or focusing on answering its diversionary accusations, would be a huge mistake.

What people need most is jobs, education, easy access to health and affordable food and housing, so they need to hear how Nasa will provide these and the fundamental frameworks for the overarching principles of inclusion, equity and devolution. Jubilee did not provide any of this in the four years it had. A united Nasa led by Mr Odinga should have no trouble winning.

Salim Lone, a journalist and columnist for the 'Nation' for many years, was spokesman and adviser to opposition leader / Prime Minister Raila Odinga from 2005-2013. He is writing a book on the post-Moi years. He lives in Princeton in the United States.