Mr. Raila Odinga, a leading ODM-Kenya Presidential candidate, was last Saturday nominated by ODM-K Scandinavia to run for Presidency in the forth coming December elections. Plans for ODM-KS to nominate a candidate were announced by the Party’s Executive committee last month and since then, there has been a lot of lobbying, arguments and counter arguments within the Party’s membership about the exercise.
This was expected. When the matter was put to vote, it emerged that majority of members wanted the exercise to proceed. At the end of the nomination, Raila Odinga emerged the winner. Supporters of the nomination were of the view that the issue of nomination was creating a lot of divisions back home and that since ODM-Kenya was in a state of confusion, the Party needed clear signals from Scandinavia as to who was preferable amongst the current line up which comprises of Kalonzo Musyoka, Uhuru Kenyatta, Musalia Mudavadi, William Ruto, Najib Balala, Nazrin Mohammed and Julia Ojiambo.
For ODM-KS members who supported the nomination process, delaying the nomination of ODM-Kenya’s Presidential candidate carries with it poisonous ingredients of perpetual disunity within the Party, a negative tendency which, some ODM-KS members believe, will deprive the Party precious campaign time.
ODM-KS members who were opposed to the move think that such a nomination at this time is tantamount to “crossing the bridge before you come to it”. Their view is that ODM-KS should not have nominated a candidate before the Party’s members in Kenya have had an opportunity to do so.
This view was countered by pro-nomination members who reminded their colleagues that regardless of who was nominated by ODM-KS, the Party would still support whoever is nominated in Kenya because that is how democracy works.
Supporters of Raila’s candidacy believe that he will win the nomination in Kenya because he remains the most popular candidate. According to the pro-Raila camp, the politician has already shown his campaign abilities by successfully campaigning for the incumbent President who made history by seizing power on a wheel chair because he had a good campaign team whose aggressive tactics, they claim, were masterminded by Raila Odinga.
The nomination of Raila was also pegged on his political experience. Being the record holder of the “longest serving detainee” in independent Kenya, Raila’s supporters argued that he is fit for Presidency because Kenya needs a principled President who does not compromise with cowardice. Raila’s years of detention without trial under Moi has been used by his supporters to project him as a person who has tasted suffering and who, therefore, is in a position to understand the suffering of millions of Kenyans currently being oppressed under the Kibaki dictatorship.
Raila moved from detention and joined former President Moi who later betrayed him through the botched Uhuru Project. Raila’s supporters argue that without Raila moving from KANU after he was betrayed, KANU could still be in power and that the current President Kibaki could still be in opposition. The view is that Raila’s decision to quit KANU is what wrecked the Party from within creating room for the construction of Narc which seized power to end 40 years of KANU dictatorship in Kenyan politics.
RAILA SUPPORTS DUAL CITIZENSHIP AND VOTING FROM ABROAD
ODM-KS is aware that its nomination of Raila will not be taken well by other Presidential candidates and Raila haters. The Party’s position is that its members have a right to nominate a candidate of their choice and to express this choice openly, just like other members of the Party. According to these members, ODM-KS cannot wait for ODM-Kenya to give instructions on how the Party needs to operate in Scandinavia because ODM-KS is operating under different political circumstances.
Another issue is that ODM-K is currently in deep crisis because of the problem of nominating a candidate. Under the circumstances, members who supported the idea of nomination believe that ODM-KS has to show the way on the nomination issue.
Raila also scored lots of points because of the gigantic work he did during the Referendum, time when ODM was also formed. Party members who voted for him believe that he was instrumental in the rejection of the Wako draft of the Constitution because of his ability to unify people.
Historically, Raila is seen by supporters in Scandinavia as the most progressive Presidential candidate in the line up because of his consistency, “attack strategies” and enormous courage. His exposure of the “Artur scandal” has also been used by supporters to portray him as a politician who is well informed and who is therefore fit to be President.
Further, supporters argued that Raila has good international contacts which Kenya needs for reconstruction in the post Kibaki era. Supporters have argued that he has close ties with leading politicians like Barrack Obama who is currently running for US Presidential nomination and that in case Obama wins in the United States, Kenya may be one of the countries that might benefit heavily as a result of bilateral ties.
Raila has been moving abroad a great deal. His numerous contacts with Kenyans in Diaspora was used by supporters to argue that he is the only politician who has gone out of his way to try and reach as many Kenyans in Diaspora as possible in order to explain his policies. Supporters cited video footage of Raila’s trips abroad where he is seen fielding difficult questions from Kenyans in Diaspora and answering them satisfactorily.
According to supporters, Raila is the only Presidential candidate who has travelled abroad and made it clear that Kenyans abroad should not just be allowed to vote from abroad but that under his government, they will be allowed dual citizenship.
Another plus that put Raila ahead of his contenders is the view that as a politician, he is not tainted with corruption scandals neither has he been in government for as long as Kibaki or Kalonzo Musyoka who worked with Moi under a corrupt regime for decades before crossing over to Narc when KANU was sinking.
Although he has been portrayed as a tribalist, supporters were quick to point out that if that was so, Raila could not have allowed his eldest son Fidel Castro to marry a girl from the Kikuyu ethnic group, more so, from the family of the first President of the Republic of Kenya, President Jomo Kenyatta. Mama Ngina Kenyatta, the wife of the late President Kenyatta, attended the wedding, the same wedding that united the Odinga and the Kenyatta families by blood. “This wedding put to an end lose talk that Raila is a tribalist”, a supporter told KSB.
A radical wing within ODM-KS encouraged members to view Raila as a member of the Kenyan ruling class , arguing that although he is the most progressive candidate in ODM-K, his class in politics dictates that he might remain unpredictable whether or not he is elected President.
Okoth Osewe
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