Is this the end of an era for once mighty ODM?

By Muthui KariukiKenya's mightiest opposition-sourced political juggernaut since the very early days of Kenya African National Union, Kenya’s party of Independence, was without doubt the Orange Democratic Party of Raila Odinga, now Prime Minister of Kenya. 

I refer to ODM in the past tense because everything about what the public opinion pollsters have for years characterised as Kenyan’s most popular political party is so yesterday.
Variously dubbed the party of the future and the Maisha Bora alternative, the PM’s party has neither a future nor does it credibly hold out the prospect of improved quality-of-life dynamics for what is left of its membership, not even on a wishful-thinking basis.

In fact, ODM is in such tattered disrepair, disorder and disarray that the PM went all the way to North America to tell a bemused audience at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC early this year that the Grand Coalition Government is "unstable".
Raila condemned the coalition model as unstable even in its "export" versions, for instance in Zimbabwe.

Back home, President Kibaki and Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, must have looked askance at the PM’s remarks and had the same thought — speak for yourself, Prime Minister.
In fact, Parliament might want to interrogate the PM regarding his characterisation of the House as often descending into a "theatre of the absurd".

The premier might also wish to be advised that the CSIS is a most inappropriate venue and platform to go and emote about dysfunctional coalitions — the Centre was in fact founded, in 1962, and still runs, on a bipartisan basis addressing foreign policy and security issues, bridging the political gap in America, not widening it.

"Most damaging of all," Raila told his CSIS audience, "the coalition arrangement in Kenya and its inherent tensions have meant that preparing for the next election has been almost continuous since the conclusion of the last one. This has distracted from critical day-to-day issues, and has often rendered Parliament a theatre of the absurd".

These are remarkable utterances, not least because no other political formation and no other national leader has worked harder to make the last three years a constant pseudo-presidential campaign season, or sought to divert Parliament’s business, as assiduously as ODM under the Prime Minister.

ODM’s internal disarray began in earnest early last year, when rumblings of disaffection among the ranks of its single largest vote bloc, the Rift Valley, were first registered on the political Richter scale.
Those with ears to hear got quite an earful, as accusations of Raila being an incipient dictator rent the air.

Jebii Kilimo uttered the definitive sentiments when she declared that President Kibaki had in fact won the 10th General Election. After that it was all downhill and the Kalenjin vote, one of the largest and most cohesive on the Voter’s Roll, signaled its final parting of ways with ODM at the national referendum on the new Constitution, making it clear that if Raila had opposed the new law they would have supported it, just to be anywhere but where he was.

Fear of infiltrationRaila returned the compliment mid-December, when International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo named the Kenya Six, among who are three Kalenjin. Raila and his inner court erupted into joy and urged that the Six be tried entirely at The Hague.
The Kalenjin voted with their feet and Raila and ODM looked on helplessly as 1.8 million votes took a walk long before the campaign and voting for the 11th General Election, a transition poll in which Kenya will get a new President.

Ever since the year started, ODM has been unable to undertake either a credible membership drive or grassroots elections as per the Political Parties Act.
Citing fear of infiltration by moles, the ODM Secretariat has repeatedly postponed both the drive and internal polls.

The once mighty ODM is looking increasingly like a rained-on cat, so desperate has it become to hold on to support from regions other than Maragoli-land and Luo Nyanza that party Chief Whip Jakoyo Midiwo actually declared in Parliament that there is nothing in the law whatsoever barring nepotism.

He was defending Water Minister Charity Ngilu who was absolved of all blame in a series of mega corruption scams under her docket. The last straw for ODM could well be on the way, and the body blow may come from the Luhya, Kenya’s second largest ethnic community and mighty vote bloc in its own right.

The minute the Census 2009 results were released and it was revealed the Luhya now number in excess of five million, the community’s electoral politics strategists went to work on Deputy Prime Minister and Local Government Minister Musalia Mudavadi, the last known non-Luo loyalist of his stature, putting him on notice to prepare himself for his first stab at the Presidency.
If Musalia declares and Raila demurs, then ODM’s goose is well and truly cooked.
—Writer is the Media and Communications Advisor to the Vice President.