UDA looks set to follow beaten path of former powerful parties

A woman dances on top of a wheelbarrow during UDA campaigns in Limuru in November 2021. [George Njunge, Standard]

Selfish interests, lack of ideology, greed and politics based on ethnicity have dealt a mortal blow to many promising political coalitions and parties in Kenya in the past three decades.

Large political parties and coalitions, like Jubilee which in 2018 had 173 MPs, collapsed like a pack of cards in less than 10 years. A similar fate befell Narc in 2007 and PNU in 2013.

Special purpose vehicles built for winning elections like Raila Odinga’s CORD 2013-2016, NASA 2017-2021 and Kalonzo Musyoka’s ONE Kenya Alliance 2021–2022 also suffered a similar fate.

The question on many lips is when, and not if, the Kenya Kwanza coalition will collapse. And, indeed, if President William Ruto’s UDA party will live to see the light of day in 2032.

“Kenya Kwanza will not live long because it is also a special purpose vehicle that is not based on any ideology. What was the ideology of UDA? Is it the dynasties versus hustlers? Was that really an ideology or a slogan?” asks political analyst Martin Andati.

Fears of UDA implosion emanate from the ongoing squabbles and power games revolving around President William Ruto with his deputy Rigathi Gachagua and the barbs that are being directed at UDA Secretary General Cleophas Malala.

Prof Peter Kagwanja, the Director of Africa Policy Institute (API), says few parties in Africa live to celebrate their 10th birthday yet the stability of political parties is necessary for sustainable development.  

“Parties in Kenya have the highest mortality rate because they fail to organise properly and that is why parties like Narc of 2002, PNU in 2007 and Jubilee in 2013, all-powerful former ruling parties, are now pale shadows of their former self or are literally dead,” says Kagwanja.

Prof Gitile Naituli of Multimedia University thinks discipline lacks in many parties which are also populated by greedy and unprincipled leaders.

Naituli says political parties in Kenya advance their political and economic interests through ethnicity and that is why fallouts, like the one emerging in Kenya Kwanza, are a recipe for chaos in UDA.

The ruling party based its support base mainly on votes from the Mt Kenya region and Rift Valley where both the Deputy President and his boss hail from respectively.

Differences between them spell doom for UDA because people in the Mt Kenya region are getting increasingly restless because of Kenya Kwanza economic policies. Gachagua’s “One Man One Vote One Shilling” campaign also appears to resonate with the people.

Ironically, Malala’s caution against bickering in the party has had the opposite effect of fanning the fire.

Hot air

On Wednesday, the Secretary-General warned Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga, Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi, Githunguri MP Gathoni Wamuchomba and Cabinet Secretaries Kipchumba Murkomen and Moses Kuria against “disrespecting the party leadership and the presidency.”

“You are either disrespecting the party leadership and the presidency or were engaged in political activities against the laws of the land,” Malala cautioned in a letter to the five party members.

But Kahiga and Sudi swiftly fired back, with the Governor describing the warning as “hot air”, adding that in UDA, Malala is like a square peg in a round hole.

“He doesn’t fit. I have said it before and I repeat, we must get rid of him in the coming UDA elections,” said Kahiga adding that Malala was an ANC official seconded to UDA in acting capacity.

Sudi’s response was even more contemptuous, describing Malala as “an elevated MCA suffering from some illusionary superiority” thinking he matches the calibre of former Jubilee secretary general Raphael Tuju.

Also threatening UDA’s stability is the repercussions of the ongoing party elections, especially in an area like Nairobi that is dominated by the opposition.

It appears the wrangling among party leaders has also been extended to the secretariat.

Malala recently complained that his authority as the secretary general was being undermined, as was the case when he postponed party elections in West Pokot County.

The SG released a statement directing the National Elections Board to stop elections in West Pokot until a decision is made by the Electoral and Nominations Disputes Resolution Committee. This was after some leaders raised complaints.

That directive was quickly dismissed by the National Elections Board chairman Anthony Mwaura who said Malala’s directive was “null and void” because he had no authority to stop any party elections.

Andati does not see either Kenya Kwanza or UDA lasting long because they are attempting to manage elections the way Kanu did during President Daniel arap Moi’s time by using party lists.

He was referring to the party delegates list managed by the office of Kanu Director of Elections, then led by the then Eldoret North MP Ruto.

“There is also the idea of creating a merger that they are toying with. UDA and ANC have been asked to come up with separate merger documents for consideration of forming a new UDA that will be styled on how New Kanu which was formed when the then ruling party merged with Raila’s NDP,” says Andati.

Asked about the future of Kenya Kwanza, Andati says for the short term, it will look like a very strong coalition the way Kanu appeared when New Kanu was formed but it will all depend on how ODM operates because it is also allegedly working on a separate merger document.

In 2002, Kanu and the NDP hammered a political agreement, with the NDP agreeing to dissolve for the merger to take effect. Raila became the Secretary General of New KANU. A few months later, the merger broke up over a disagreement of who would be the party’s presidential candidate in that year’s election. Raila and several Cabinet ministers walked away to join the opposition in forming the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc).

Andati thinks Kenya Kwanza will be very vulnerable if it agrees to have some form of working relationship with ODM because Raila can walk away at an opportune moment.

“I can tell you that there is almost a 100 per cent possibility that Kenya Kwanza will not be there by 2032, and that is because it is going to suffer a similar fate to Kanu, PNU, Jubilee, Narc among others,” he says.

The other big challenge facing political parties and coalitions in Kenya is that they are either ethnic or regional-based, with a lot of reliance on political figures who form them.

ODM has, for example, existed for over 15 years now but it has largely depended on the influence of the party leader Raila, a larger-than-life figure whose absence could spell doom for the party.

In fact, squabbles are already emerging as some leaders position themselves to lead the party should Raila be appointed to the chairman of the African Union secretariat next year.

But another challenge that parties face is the interference by the executive or the ruling party, especially the president as was seen recently when President Ruto ensnared Jubilee and ODM MPs using promises of development.

Large parties like the original FORD, which was founded by Jaramogi Odinga Oginga and Masinde Muliro, was weakened both by internal divisions and poaching of MPs by President Moi’s Kanu.

Like now, internal feuds were the order of the day at the dawn of multiparty politics in the early 1990s.

They started with FORD’s two opposing factions registering as separate political parties, Ford-Asili, led by Kenneth Matiba, and Ford-Kenya led by Odinga, ahead of the 1992 elections.

Defections to Kanu

Ford Kenya first appeared to be a strong party with many “young Turks” like Wamalwa, Raila, Paul Muite, Kiraitu Murungi and Gitobu Imnayara in its ranks, until Jaramogi died in 1994 and a leadership feud between Wamalwa and Raila, rocked the party. Raila left to take over NDP.

As Ford Kenya wobbled, Ford-Asili was also going through leadership turmoil after Matiba diffed with Secretary General Martin Shikuku. Matiba then announced that the party had changed its name to Saba-Saba Asili.

Then there was the poaching by the ruling party. In the first weeks of 1993, when Kenyans were just settling down to absorb the importance of multi-party elections held in December 1992, Bonchari MP Protus Momanyi defected from Mwai Kibaki’s DP to Kanu.

The next target was Ford Asili MPs in Western region. Between 1993 and August 1994, the party lost five Luhya MPs, Nicodemus Khaniri, Apili Wawire, Japheth Shamallah, Benjamin Magawagwa and Javan Lurambi, to Kanu.

Moi then moved to Ford Kenya as defections moved to Nyanza where Charles Owino Likowa, Tom Obondo and Ochiola Ogur left Ford Kenya.