'Pushover' tag hurting Musalia Mudavadi’s 2017 quest

UDF leader Musalia Mudavadi chats with his deputy Jeremiah Kioni during an NDC in Nairobi in October 2014. [PHOTO: WILBERFORCE OKWIRI/STANDARD]

NAIROBI: Even as he prepares himself for a second shot at the presidency in 2017, UDF leader Musalia Mudavadi will have to deal with the image that he is not his own man, politically.

This is a tag that has hung around his neck ever since he joined politics two decades ago and continues to impact negatively on his political fortunes.

In 1989, at the age of 29, Mudavadi inherited the Sabatia seat from his father, Moses Mudavadi, who had died.

The then President Moi enjoyed a good working relationship with the senior Mudavadi whom he depended to deliver the Luhya vote, or at least the Maragoli section of it.

To reward his old friend and perhaps ensure Kanu’s popularity among the Maragoli, Moi appointed Musalia the minister of Supplies and Marketing upon his election.

He easily retained his parliamentary seat in the 1992 multi-party elections and was appointed Finance minister in 1993, a position he held until 1997.

He retained his parliamentary seat in the 1997 General Election after which he was appointed minister for Agriculture and Leader of Government Business in Parliament.

These were powerful positions and it spoke of the favour he carried with Moi. He was seen as one of Moi’s probable successors in 2002. But it all crumbled on the afternoon of November 6, 2002. That day, the Presidential Press Service issued a statement stating that Mudavadi had been appointed Vice-President.

President Moi had appointed Mudavadi, then Transport minister, to replace Prof George Saitoti who had been sacked in August for supporting the Rainbow Alliance. It was barely two months to the December 27 elections. He became Kenya’s shortest serving VP.

This appointment would prove to be a poisoned chalice that would deal a deadly blow to his political career.

In accepting the appointment, Mudavadi earned the tag of a “sell-out.” Prior to his appointment, he had briefly joined hands with other Kanu rebel MPs to oppose Moi’s choice of Uhuru Kenyatta as his successor. But he had sorely misread the mood on the ground. His Western Kenya Luhya base was firmly in the Opposition’s grip and he lost his Sabatia seat in the December elections to little known preacher, Moses Akaranga.

Time off

He turned down Kanu’s nomination to Parliament saying he wanted to take time off to reflect on his future political career. He stayed in the political cold until the 2005 referendum campaigns revived his career. He aligned himself with the Orange side that successfully opposed the referendum.

The star of those campaigns, Raila Odinga, was instrumental in bringing Mudavadi to the Orange fold that morphed in to a political party—the Orange Democratic Movement—after the referendum. Mudavadi slowly emerged from the political doldrums to play a key role in the creation and the evolution of ODM in to a powerful political force.

Mudavadi lost to Raila in the ODM presidential primaries. Raila made him his deputy and was then tasked with bringing in the Luhya vote for the party.

His performance, to some, was unsatisfactory. In western Kenya, ODM produced the highest number of MPs, but the margins between the presidential candidates was too thin. Raila beat President Kibaki with a margin of 150,000 votes, a disappointing statistic in what was considered ODM’s stronghold.

When Raila appointed Mudavadi as Deputy Prime Minister in 2008, the Kalenjin section of ODM which had massively supported Raila grumbled and this became the genesis of the crisis that split ODM. Soon, the Kalenjin coalesced around William Ruto and charted a separate political destiny that culminated in the formation of a union with Uhuru.

Mudavadi stuck with ODM and Raila but as the ruthless political chess games ahead of the 2013 polls were being played out, he was again left somehow flatfooted.

First, he insisted that he was going to be ODM’s torchbearer over Raila and when he realised he could not have his way, he decamped to a new outfit, the United Democratic Front.

The party was not his and was said to have close ties with certain powerful operatives in State House who preferred him to succeed Kibaki.

Rumours began that he was going to be a compromise candidate between Uhuru and Ruto both who considered by the State House operatives as unelectable due to the charges they were facing at the International Criminal Court.

The basis of these rumours was a secret agreement Uhuru had reached with Mudavadi to support him for the presidency. However, under pressure, Uhuru trashed the agreement and went on to become president.

Mudavadi has taken a low profile since losing the elections. But he came to limelight once again last year when he unsuccessfully tried to eject top officials of UDF including its chairman Hassan Osman. The process of coming in to his own politically has been long and arduous for Mudavadi. As 2017 nears it remains to be seen whether he can successfully shrug off this tag.