Why Raila will be the man to beat in 2022 elections

Some media outlets and pundits were last week still contriving to figure out whether Mr Raila Odinga will be running, for the fifth time, for president in 2022. Here's why Mr Odinga will gun for the top job.

One, he is currently the red hot favourite to clinch the presidency, especially because a Building Bridges Initiative-based political alliance is on the cards. Mr Odinga is BBI and BBI is Mr Odinga.

BBI is not the out of view bureaucratic-cum-technocratic-cum-intellectual panel.

It is the festivals of cacophony and euphoria at weekend rallies, since halted by Covid19-induced ban on meetings and social distancing decree.

They sell and celebrate Mr Odinga's political tradecraft, demean and destroy Deputy President William Ruto, and relegate other senior politicians to paying homage to Baba.

Two, it was I who nicknamed him the unelected powerhouse. Mr Odinga has never been this politically powerful.

Not even as premier did he amass such power; not twice as Cabinet minister did he wield such authority, and not as secretary-general of governing Kanu did he have such influence in government.

Three, never before has an unelected politico been this prohibitively strong a whole two years before a presidential poll.

EXPANSIVE LEEWAY

Mr Odinga was strong heading into the now infamous 2007 presidential election, but that became evident towards the tail end.

Then he was up against a sitting president. Now the incumbent president is his top backer and defender.

Four, before Baba no unelected individual had ever become a powerhouse without a defined public office and had his executive physical office, and infrastructure, paid for and maintained by the taxpayer. May Mr Odinga be the last.

Five, it indeed is instructive that the holder of this amorphous office is consulted and briefed by Cabinet ministers and senior public servants on key developments.

He in turn orders and directs them, as if he were their hirer. This incongruity has the president's blessings.

Six, an aspirant to the presidency has never before enjoyed such expansive leeway as to dictate the political trajectory of Kenya.

Welcome to BBI, Mr Odinga's custom-made State House Express. Every politician scrambles to be seen and heard at BBI rallies.

Seven, the power of the presidency and levers of state have been used legally and politically, subtly and overtly, brilliantly and brazenly to soften the political ground for Mr Odinga.

REPAY DEBT

This has seen the drip drip of damning information for public humiliation and destruction of Dr Ruto and his allies, as Mr Odinga has constructed an anti-Ruto network organised around governors.

Eight, crucially never before has a sitting president made a fetish of publicly and wholesomely praising and almost fawning over foe-turned-ally.

President Kenyatta even hints at Mr Odinga being an asset to Kenya because without his cooperation the country would be in a bad place.

With the DP often deliberately sidestepped, sidelined, and blindsided on major and minor state, presidential, Cabinet and political events, and ignored by ministers and senior civil servants, Mr Odinga seems to many the undeclared second in command in government.

Nine, in 2022 President Kenyatta's Big Four legacy projects will still be a pipe dream. The saving grace would appear to be for him to bridge the chasm between the Luo and Kikuyu begat by his father Jomo when he betrayed Raila's dad, Jaramogi.

The Kikuyu have always rejected Mr Odinga, yet his dad refused to be made premier by colonialists, insisting there would be no independence without jailed Kenyatta.

The president appears ready to pay the Luo the debt his dad incurred when he betrayed Jaramogi.

REFERENDUM

Ten, and last, Mr Odinga will drive Kenya into a referendum whose outcome is predetermined. The plebiscite will be the starter's gun for a marathon race to the 2022 General Election.

Its outcome will feed into the campaigns for the General Election. If there is a coalition government before the end of the year, Mr Odinga will be running his show like an incumbent.

Who else would keep Kenya in a permanent state of election?

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When in 2014 River Nyando burst its banks, a displaced young woman's anguished cry stunned Kenya: "Government, please, where are you?"

Today, flooding Nyando has displaced more than 6,000 people. Where, they ask, is Serikali? The government has been around since 1963? Nyando floods will recur. Government's silence will recur. Where's local leadership?

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