Following the disputed 1997 election, the National Development Party of Raila Odinga, who had emerged third behind Moi and Democratic Party’s Mwai Kibaki, moved into a loose co-operation deal with President Moi’s Kanu.
The arrangement was fiercely opposed by four Luo Nyanza MPs: James Orengo (Ugenya), Shem Ochuodho (Rangwe), Joe Donde (Gem) and Oloo Aringo (Alego Usonga).
To be strictly honest, only Aringo and Ochuodho, from this cast, were actually NDP members. Orengo and Donde had survived the NDP wave across Luoland in the 1997 elections, to romp home on Ford Kenya tickets, the latter doing so only because a technicality had locked out the NDP candidate from the polls.
But within NDP, there was another opponent of the deal, often forgotten because his winning his seat on the NDP ticket had been a big surprise; Limuru MP George Nyanja.
Nyanja had held the Limuru seat from 1992 on Kenneth Matiba’s Ford Asili ticket, but when Matiba decided, late in 1997 to boycott the election and burned his voter’s card, Nyanja and many erstwhile Ford Asili members were left in a spin. After frantically running between different party offices, Nyanja found a listening ear at the offices of NDP, a relatively new entrant to high-stakes electoral politics at that time.
By the time the 2002 election came along, and despite NDP having merged with Kanu and its followers subsequently falling out with the ruling party, all MPs who had opposed the cooperation couldn’t find a footing back in elective seats through the new National Rainbow Coalition.
These anecdotes go to illustrate two key issues; one being the difficulty faced by the minority who oppose an official coalition or co-operation arrangement, and two, the possible consequences to the party should a hyped deal end up badly.
Fast-forward to 2024 and a few “cooperations” later, another of Raila’s parties, ODM, finds itself in the eye of the storm, after being accused of going to bed with the Ruto regime, which many pundits feel was on its deathbed two months ago and should have been allowed to rest in peace.
However, to be fair, this new arrangement with Ruto is neither an official cooperation or coalition deal, nor has it been acknowledged by the party.
Beyond the co-opting of four former ODM officials into government, we can safely state, for purposes of clarity, that any friendliness between the ruling coalition and ODM is only superficial.
Nevertheless, if there is a major lesson from the NDP-Kanu deal, it is what my people phrase as the need to “sleep with one eye open”, because the stated desires and intentions of the President and his regime will always revolve largely around self-preservation, and not about any lofty pro-people policies.
The current political friendliness between the ruling Kenya Kwanza and ODM has divided the latter right down the middle.
There are powerful party voices on both sides, and at this juncture, it is difficult to tell which wing has the upper hand.
Be that as it may, party secretary general Edwin Sifuna has emerged as the loudest voice against what he sees as an attempt by the President to scuttle multi-party democracy by disrupting the operations of the most influential political party in the land. Truth be told, he is right.
It cannot be by accident that Ruto, in choosing opposition elements to help shore up his government, went for no less a team than two ODM deputy leaders, its national chairman and its coalition’s Minority leader in the National Assembly.
The underlying gimmick is too obvious to ignore; the glaring desire to milk as much political capital out of the deal as possible, while also capturing the true face of the opposition and diminishing its wiggle room in the season of heavy-duty politics.
On Wednesday last week, one of the former ODM officials now serving in the Cabinet, Treasury CS John Mbadi, was set to appear before the Senate plenary to answer questions directed at his ministry.
At the very last minute, he sent a letter indicating that he would not be available as he was headed for a meeting at State House. Sifuna took great exception to this, and loudly wondered how fast Mbadi had graduated into a “proper Kenya Kwanza CS”.
The Nairobi senator was promptly buried in a barrage of points of order by the ruling coalition’s side.
To the non-discerning eye and ear, Sifuna could easily have been dismissed as “fighting his own”.
But in realpolitik, it is important to state that these links with the President and his government portend an image crisis that requires what we can loosely call ODM in Opposition (ODM-IO) to take a firm stand against their brothers, ODM in Government (ODM-IG), to safeguard the party’s base and its centre-left social justice agenda, in the face of the “you are now in government” chants from its detractors.
While still on divisions, we can all remember that before the Mbadi incident in Parliament last Wednesday, there was another on Monday, September 9, when President Ruto invited the Nairobi ODM elected leadership for a meeting at State House.
They snubbed him, except Nairobi Woman Rep Esther Passaris, Dagoretti North MP Beatrice Elachi and Makadara MP George Aladwa, who, incidentally, have chosen to firmly occupy the dubious seat of the President’s political lapdog and chief mobiliser in the city.
All these point to a clear pattern of masked pessimism within ODM ranks, that despite the enthusiasm shown to the President by the party’s largest base, Luo Nyanza, there is a widespread feeling that the party ought to proceed with caution, and certainly that it should leave a comfortable room to return to, should its marriage of convenience with Ruto, or at least that between the President and sections of the party, fail.
In this, Sifuna remains the leading voice towards safeguarding the party and its democratic ideals, in the African manner in which the sons of a homestead secure it when the elders are out on delicate assignments.
The 2027 election will be interesting, and a lot around it will hinge on how the current inter-coalition deals pan out. With the Ruto-Gachagua political marriage all but gone, the President could look to ODM, or even the entire Western part of the country, for a new running mate.
There is also the possibility that he may replace Gachagua with someone from the latter’s own Mount Kenya region. Without having one of its own on that ticket, the ODM bases may then opt to have their own presidential candidate or partner with different parties other than Ruto’s.
It is critical that the party’s members see Senator Sifuna’s pronouncements in this light.
I get this distinct feeling that even the party’s own leader, Raila Odinga, appreciates the need for a powerful anti-government wing in the ranks of the movement, both to blunt Kenya Kwanza’s rather regressive instincts, while also ensuring that ODM itself does not end up swallowed by government like NDP did.
This way, the party walks a tightrope but ensures its identity is kept. In Kenya’s fast evolving political platform, the friends of today are the rabid enemies of tomorrow. Which means that ODM is lucky to have Sifuna watching the base as the party’s more adventurous members hunt with the government, keeping for the latter a home to return to, if need be.
The writer is political commentator