Will Uhuru team endorse Musalia?

Jubilee coalition leaders from left: William Ruto, Musalia Mudavadi, and Uhuru Kenyatta during a rally in Malava, Kakamega County, yesterday. [PHOTO: BENJAMIN SAKWA/STANDARD]

By Standard Team

NAIROBI; KENYA: As the clock ticks towards the Tuesday deadline for the Jubilee Alliance to pick its presidential candidate, there are indications that Uhuru Kenyatta may borrow a leaf from Raila Odinga’s ‘Kibaki Tosha! political book and endorse fellow Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi.

With just a couple of hours before the Jubilee Alliance identifies its presidential flag bearer, the two combatants – Uhuru and Musalia – are ironically getting cosy in their new-found political friendship, although their allies on the other hand have been sending mixed signals. While the ideal situation would be for the two to separately work overdrive in search for votes ahead of the delegates’ meeting, Uhuru and Mudavadi have instead opted to engage in a public display of political harmony.?

Their actions have confounded friends and foes with many asking whether the team has indeed already identified a presidential flag bearer. As we went to press, there were strong indications that this was the case, with some suggesting that Uhuru may be planning to endorse Mudavadi.

Ethnic alliance

Those pushing for Mudavadi argue that he helps to disabuse the perception that Jubilee Alliance is mainly a two-community affair – the Kikuyu and Kalenjin. Mudavadi, they also maintain, waters down the argument the grouping is vying on an International Criminal Court ticket (ICC). This is in reference to the Uhuru-Ruto pair who face charges of crimes against humanity.

Those pushing for Mudavadi argue that he helps to disabuse the perception that Jubilee Alliance is mainly a two-community affair – the Kikuyu and Kalenjin.

Uhuru, on the other hand, is credited for the relentless effort, including campaign and financial support, to create TNA and finally assemble the Jubilee Alliance. Besides, he has a comparatively larger following.

Trying to appease supporters

If this is the true position, then the Gatundu South MP already appears to be working towards the said goal. Granting a nearly one-hour long interview on Kameme FM last weekend, Uhuru directly engaged his supporters in central Kenya in the local Kikuyu dialect, preparing them to support Mudavadi if the nomination ticket goes to the Sabatia MP.

He repeated the same call later in the afternoon, when he went to register as a voter in Gatundu. According to Uhuru, the Sabatia MP and himself, are “friends and Kenyans”, and voters from his community should willingly vote for either.

Energy minister Kiraitu Murungi and Jimnah Mbaru, an aspirant for Nairobi’s Governor seat, equally support consensus as a way of stemming possible falling out from the competitive exercise.

“The Raila-Kalonzo team appears to be on the safer side having agreed to use consensus. But if Jubilee takes a vote then that will break the alliance, unless of course Uhuru and Mudavadi opt for a mock exercise,” warns Kiraitu.?

Indeed many Jubilee operatives concur that consensus is the way to go. This also ties in with the spirit of the team, which has fashioned the party as one geared at national healing.

Nonetheless, supporters of Uhuru, who continues to lead the park of Jubilee presidential aspirants in opinion polls, maintain their man is the best candidate.

An even bigger danger is that Uhuru’s absence from the ballot paper as a presidential candidate may trigger voter apathy and disinterest in the populous central Kenya,

Yet still other politicians are uncomfortable with a new candidate because they have invested heavily financially in printing campaign materials, including marketing Uhuru over the last two years.? These are the challenges the supporters of the two presidential aspirants will have to address.

On Friday, Uhuru, Mudavadi and Ruto addressed supporters in Malava constituency in western Kenya. And on Friday, Uhuru and Mudavadi were together yet again attending the wedding of the TNA leader’s niece at Nairobi’s Holly Family Basilica.

Earlier On Friday, Uhuru and Mudavadi teamed up again at Jevanjee Gardens to receive Nominated MP and Co-operatives minister, Joe Nyagah, who defected from ODM.

But even as the two politicians are engaged in public display of political affection, it is not lost on observers that the three coalition partners have been sharply divided over the method for picking the candidate before the December 18 deadline set in the agreement lodged with the Registrar of Political Parties on December 4.

Uhuru’s TNA supports the delegates system, preferably in an arrangement where URP does not participate ostensibly because it is not being considered for the presidential slot.

According to the agreement, the party gets the deputy president slot, while either TNA or UDF get the position of the president or the majority parliamentary party leader.

Delegates’ or Boardroom decision?

TNA has also been insisting that the delegates be pro-rated to party strength, based on membership as of December 4, when the agreement was signed. The delegates’ method naturally tilts the scales in favour of TNA. TNA and URP have about 600,000 members, while UDF has just over 400,000.

But URP has fought the idea of being left out of the nomination. UDF officials, on the other hand, insist that each party should have equal number of delegates, saying the three parties are equal partners in the coalition and party strength is not mentioned as a determinant of participation levels or sharing of positions.

URP officials told The Standard On Sunday they preferred Mudavadi, saying the proposal to front Uhuru had received hostile reception in the party’s stronghold, the North Rift (Kalenjin) region, a development that worries Ruto.

The hostile reception expressed strongly through radio talk shows, social media platforms, and street demos, threatened to shift the Kalenjin support to the rival coalition of Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka.

Mudavadi’s Rift Valley background

Mudavadi, on the other hand, is warmly regarded in the region and has strong historical links with the Kalenjin.  He was born and brought up in Baringo, where his father, former Local Government Minister Moses Mudavadi, worked as an education officer.

Kalenjin stepmother

Indeed, Musalia has a Kalenjin stepmother, and the senior Mudavadi is credited with paving the way for former President Moi to leave the classroom at Tambach Teachers College for a journey that would take him through the colonial Legislative Council in 1950s, to the Cabinet at independence and finally President.

The decision to hand over the candidature to Mudavadi – if indeed it comes to that – could possible have been made way before the signing of the coalition agreement on December 4.

Sources say that the biggest headache troubling the three principals was how to break the news without causing a backlash, particularly within Uhuru’s party, where his rising momentum, coupled with the previous agreement signed with Ruto, had primed his supporters for a fight that would go all the way to the ballot.

And, as the clock ticks towards the Tuesday deadline, the option for the three principals is to announce a boardroom decision, according to political analysts.

 It is a near logistic impossibility to round up the delegates for a nomination process before Tuesday. What is still unclear is why, and how, the decision was reached to hand over the contest to Mudavadi.

Two theories have been proposed:  One, the complications wrought by the ICC case, where Uhuru and Ruto are facing criminal charges following the 2008 post-election violence, may have convinced the TNA leader that his candidature, and even his presidency, may be untenable.

Mudavadi had not joined the coalition then. As he ponders his new fortunes, the wise counsel of Ecclesiastes 9:11 comes to bear:

“The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”