The day Uhuru reached out to Raila

Raila Odinga twice shelved plans to be sworn in as ‘the People’s President’ in November and December last year, prompting his supporters to press for more active forms of resistance. As 2017 drew to a close, his appeals for dialogue with President Uhuru Kenyatta were derided by his supporters who were agitating for full confrontation with the Jubilee regime.

With the uncertainty around the 'handshake', it is hard to figure out what Raila’s immediate political future holds. But his legacy as Kenya’s most successful politician is unmistakable, even if some find it difficult to accept.

Raila has missed vital opportunities to push for his agenda for the country when Uhurureached out to him for help. During the research for this book, I was informed of an important meeting he held with Uhuru in Kampala in August 2013 that some of his aides felt he should have used to lower the political temperatures ahead of 2017, and thus allowed reforms he later called people out to the streets to demand.

The two leaders happened to be in Kampala by sheer coincidence. Uhuru was attending a Heads of State meeting for countries contributing troops to the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia while Raila was invited by Kabaka Ronald Mutebi II of the Kingdom of Buganda to attend the 20th anniversary celebration of the Kabaka’s coronation.

At some point, the two found themselves in the same hotel. Uhuru saw Raila and walked over to him, to the surprise of two people who had accompanied Raila. After pleasantries, the President asked the former Prime Minister whether they could meet for a drink in the evening. Raila agreed but said there was no need for aides to pick him up as he could find his way in Kampala.

At the appointed time, the two met as their aides sat at a different table. Though they are fierce opponents, Uhuru and Raila can get on well. And as happens in most cases during their meetings, Uhuru came with his favoured drinks and, as the party went down, he became extremely relaxed. He told Raila that things were not working back home and he needed help to stabilise the country.

Raila, who was then mobilising resistance against Jubilee around the NASA cluster of counties, told Uhuru that he was ready to relax his opposition, but that the Jubilee side was the one causing problems with dictatorial decisions, amendments to the law reducing authority of independent forces, the land commission and others that he would definitely oppose.

Surprisingly, Uhuru explained to him that, while he was the president, he was in a very difficult coalition arrangement and could not make drastic changes without a commitment that Raila would support him along the path of change.

Once they returned to Kenya, there was a noticeable change in the politics. The Saturday Nation, which broke the news of the meeting a week later, inaccurately reported that the meeting was arranged by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. What the Saturday Nation reported correctly were the “early signs” that the meeting had helped improve relations. The paper had “learnt that President Kenyatta telephoned Raila on Tuesday and asked him to keep government cars in his possession – in effect revoking an order by Interior Secretary Joseph ole Lenku asking the former PM and former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka to surrender the vehicles.”

Reciprocally, the paper reported that Railahad “struck a conciliatory tone in recent public comments. The NASA leader recently met some Nyanza leaders in Nairobi and asked them to treat President Kenyatta well when he visits the region in a planned development inspection tour.”

Uhuru was clearly determined but lacked the nerve to reset politics in a new direction of inter-party cooperation. To those on Raila’s side, it was not surprising when, ahead of the October 26 repeat election, Uhuru again sent his top aides to Raila to seek an agreement, with clear expressions that their discussions should remain between the two leaders and not their allies.

The handshake was the culmination of those contacts, which broached a new power-sharing agreement. Given the pattern of the contacts between the two leaders, it becomes clear that Uhuru’s main concern (second to winning power at all costs) was stability to address economic slump at each of the three stages.

Thanks to Raila’s ingenuity, some political models are tested in Africa for the first time in Kenya, such as power-sharing and coalitions, which have been replicated in Zimbabwe.