By SARAH ELDERKIN
Posted Tuesday, April 17 2012 at 17:52
Posted Tuesday, April 17 2012 at 17:52
One day early in 2008, not long after the signing of the National Accord, the Orange Democratic Movement converged on Simba Lodge, in Naivasha.
Ministers, parliamentarians, national executive members and other delegates were there for a national governing council meeting that would endorse the party’s strategic plan.
A few people, ministers in particular, were not, however, in a very happy frame of mind.
They had become increasingly irritated by the existence of the ‘Pentagon’ and by the perceived limelight enjoyed by the five people (besides ODM party leader Raila Odinga) who were its members.
The Pentagon, the ministers complained, was making Musalia Mudavadi, William Ruto, Joe Nyagah and Najib Balala, together with Charity Ngilu of ODM-associated party Narc, seem more special than other people.
After some discussion, a motion was proposed and unanimously approved to disband the Pentagon. With that, the Pentagon ceased to exist.
This is the same imaginary Pentagon of which the media and Odinga detractors have been making such a meal over the past few weeks, eagerly claiming that its members have been “deserting” Odinga.
The fact is that the Pentagon has not existed for the past four years. What is more, it was never an ODM party organ. It does not appear in the party’s Constitution.
The Pentagon was a spontaneous, informal grouping of Raila Odinga’s creation, announced immediately after the ODM presidential nominations at Kasarani stadium in 2007.
In his victory speech, Odinga named as his 2007 running mate Mudavadi, who had scored the next highest number of votes (391 to Odinga’s 2,656).
Mudavadi and all the others, said Odinga, would be grouped into what he would call his Pentagon.
The intention was to forge a bond between the winning candidate and his losing challengers.
None of the other four had supported Odinga’s campaign because they had each had their own campaign.
They had all challenged Odinga, and each other, for the ODM presidential ticket.
It was only after Odinga emerged the clear winner that he decided to wrap the others in an inclusive blanket.
It was a move to ensure unity and co-operation in the party, as well as being an innovative tool for ODM’s election campaign.
Once the campaign was over, there was no further need of the Pentagon. And at the wish of national governing council delegates, the Pentagon was disbanded.
And what of its former members? William Ruto had previously been Odinga’s competitor.
He bonded briefly (it was certainly in his interests to do so) for the 2007 elections, and then he reverted to being a competitor.
Najib Balala shilly-shallied (definitely weighing his own interests) and eventually also reverted to being a competitor.
Joe Nyagah has not yet made his 2012/3 intentions clear but he did not win his seat in 2007 and was nominated to parliament by Odinga.
Charity Ngilu was always the leader of another party, so has by definition always been a competitor.
Musalia Mudavadi has remained solidly in ODM – also very much in his own best interests.
He has held a prominent and senior position in the country’s most popular and most stable party. What’s not to like?
But now that elections approach, Mudavadi has reverted to being a competitor. He is doing nothing other than he has always done during election time.
He is repeating what he did in 2002 (when he supported Uhuru Kenyatta and lost his parliamentary seat) and again in the 2007 ODM nominations – that is, defining his own position, in his own interests.
So what is the story here? Did we expect all these competitors of Raila Odinga’s to have no objectives of their own?
Just because they were once grouped by Odinga into an informal campaign team – and what is more, a team that was formally scrapped as long ago as 2008 – should they now abandon their ambitions?
In 2007, each of them wanted to be president. They postponed that when they lost nominations.
Now there is another opportunity. They are all chasing their own dreams. Which politician does not do that?
This is not, as the media and others have liked to paint it, some kind of orchestrated abandonment of Raila Odinga.
As for the laughable headlines that Raila Odinga consequently faces ‘the fight of his life’ – just look at the latest opinion poll.
How is the person who leads with nearly twice as many votes as his next competitor justifiably described as facing ‘the fight of his life’?
That description could more appropriately be applied to some of the others.
In the opinion poll, two former Pentagon members scored five per cent each (Mudavadi and Ruto), while Balala, Nyagah and Ngilu didn’t even get a mention.
Add their votes together, and then combine the total with the votes polled by Odinga’s nearest competitor – and he still beats the lot of them by nearly 25 per cent.
I’ve got three pieces of advice for all those ‘Pentagon’ fanatics and headline writers out there.
One, dig a little deeper for the facts. Two, do the maths. Three, keep an eye wide open for the new, young face of ODM, and of this country – coming soon to a venue near you.
Ms Elderkin is a freelance journalist
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