PHOTO/FILE Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi attempts to cool down tempers at a meeting of ODM delegates at Moi Girls Vokoli High School in Vihiga County. The meeting in December had been called to endorse him for the presidential race.
By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Friday, February 10 2012 at 22:30
Posted Friday, February 10 2012 at 22:30
Mr Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi, the Deputy Prime Minister and also the deputy party leader of ODM, has come out expressing one of his little-known sides. He wants to out-do his boss, the Prime Minister, from the helm of the party and be the party’s flag-bearer in the next elections.
Well, his aggressive quest for the party ticket reminds people of that time back in 2002 when they thought he had stood up to President Daniel arap Moi, the leader of Kanu then.
Mr Mudavadi had hoped that Mr Moi would name him his successor, but that did not happen.
So he moved out of Kanu with a brigade that included his current boss Mr Raila Odinga, after Mr Moi named Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, then a political minnow and now Mr Mudavadi’s current co-DPM. But Mr Moi lured him back to Kanu with the Vice President’s carrot.
That episode has people speculating about what Mr Mudavadi’s motive for such aggressiveness is. You’ll find some of them quite outrageous. One has it that Mr Mudavadi is being fronted by the G7 and some elements in PNU who have vowed to block Mr Odinga from vying for the presidency.
The second one has it that Mr Mudavadi is tired of waiting in the wings and has decided to “take the bull by its horns”, forgive the cliché, and go for the top job, never mind the thoughts of his boss and other party members.
The third spin has it that it is part of the party’s strategy to create and cement the party as one with internal democracy.
The fourth spin has it that Mr Mudavadi is, perhaps, the premier’s effort to tease the G7 and see if they take the bait. This spin has it that Mr Odinga might just decide to back his deputy, if he banks popular support, just to outsmart the G7 whose rhetoric in recent weeks has created a perception that all they want was to stop Mr Odinga from the march to State House.
Now, it is this fourth spin that is a tad peculiar. But politics is peculiar. Borrowing from the Russian experience, where President Vladmir Putin opted to be Prime Minister, while letting Dmitry Medvedev to take over as President; those fronting this fourth spin say that Kenyans should watch this dynamic within ODM.
The fifth one has it that Mr Mudavadi is looking for an exit strategy from ODM, and that if his proposal for the presidential nominations to begin at county level is rejected, he might just walk out and join, wait for it, Kalonzo Musyoka’s Wiper Democratic Movement.
But if you ask Mr Mudavadi, the matter is just straight forward. He is a politician and the acme of politics is power and to have that power, at the topmost level, you have to be President. He sees nothing wrong in his ambition. He sees no mischief.
As the media are wont to remind you, Mr Mudavadi insists that he’s his own man. He’s nobody’s stooge, he says. It is possible that all these postulations are just that — spin. But then again, when it is politics, you just have to wait and see.
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