Saturday, February 11, 2012

ODM Should Learn From Ford’s Mistakes



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I don’t suppose it is possible to fully explain to younger Kenyans the feverish excitement which the formation of the original Forum for the Restoration of Democracy – FORD – brought into the Kenyan political arena back in 1991. It was event seen in millennial terms by even the most experienced opposition politicians and the most cynical veteran journalists.
At last, the decades of misrule under President Daniel Moi and his ruling party, Kanu, were to end. And there was a clear majority in the country which could not wait for the opportunity to send Moi packing by voting in whoever would be the presidential candidate for the wildly popular FORD. Now you would think that under such circumstances, it would have been fairly easy for FORD to decide on who their candidate would be. With a chance to effectively elect the next president at their own party nomination process, how could FORD go wrong?
Yet, as we all know, the two presidential candidates of this massively popular political party, Kenneth Matiba and Jaramogi Odinga, managed to hand over to Moi victory through a minority vote of barely 35%; and that was all Moi needed to win, under the old constitution. The first sign that things were going wrong was a debate over how that presidential candidate was to be selected.
The faction allied to Kenneth Matiba insisted on grassroots voting by party members carried out throughout the country. The group that favoured Jaramogi Odinga had a different idea: they wanted party delegates from all over the country to convene in Nairobi to nominate the party’s presidential candidate.
Neither side was willing to compromise on the method by which the party’s presidential candidate was to be selected. And this indeed proved to be so divisive an issue that in the end the all-conquering FORD broke up into two smaller parties: FORD-Kenya and FORD-Asili. And, in keeping with their declared preferences, FORD-Kenya then had a nomination process based on voting by national delegates, and this was won by Jaramogi Odinga; and FORD-Asili had nationwide grassroots elections, which were won by Kenneth Matiba.
I lived in Mombasa at that time, and I remember discussing this with one of the most influential FORD-Kenya activists of the era, who was – to all appearances – personally selecting the delegates who were to represent Mombasa at the big delegates meeting to be held in Nairobi. I asked this man why his side of the original FORD had found it impossible to oblige Matiba in his simple demand for grassroots election, as embodied in Matiba’s rallying cry, “Let the people decide!!”
He answered by explaining that any such so-called grassroots elections, was merely a mechanism that guaranteed a Matiba victory. And that their calculations had revealed that if only Central Kenya and Kikuyus in the rift Valley registered as FORD members and came out in force to vote for Matiba, that was enough to propel Matiba to victory, no matter how popular Jaramogi may be in other parts of the country.
But on the other hand, there were many in FORD who believed that the country simply was not ready for another Kikuyu president, as this raised the spectre of a return to the dreaded Kikuyu hegemony first witnessed under founding President Jomo Kenyatta. In short, that Matiba might win the FORD presidential nominations, but he was certain to thereafter lose to Moi. And many of the delegates knew this: and as such, selection by delegates would decisively favour Jaramogi, who was far more likely to put an end to Moi’s political career.
Present-day Kenya’s most popular political party, ODM, now faces a very similar challenge: first, how it is to conduct its internal nomination for its presidential candidate; and second, whether there can be certainty that this candidate will then be able to capitalize on the party’s popularity to win the presidency.
The DPM Musalia Mudavadi is in favour of grassroots elections at the county level – no doubt from a conviction that this will favour him. While the supporters of the PM, Raila Odinga insist the selection must be done by delegates – undoubtedly because they are certain that this will guarantee the PM victory. But if history is anything to go by, I think they will both end up as losers at the end of all this. And that in future, political analysts will marvel that with the example of 1992 before them, the two leaders managed to break up a party which had been on the straight path to victory.
The writer comments on topical issues.

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