Will Mudavadi’s second political gamble bear fruit?

By Abdikadir Sugow

When Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi dramatically quit the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) where he was deputy party leader in May, he took a political gamble that caused ripples.

Many wondered whether Mudavadi had made a wise decision, while others argued it was a miscalculation that could prove fatal to his political career. Six months down the line, the divergence of opinion continues to dog his decision to quit ODM and join the then little-known United Democratic Forum (UDF).

The DPM’s new party knows the battle ahead is tough, with four other major political parties to contend with, but UDF National Chairman Hassan Osman says they have strong grassroots support and the party is ranked fourth in membership registration.

“Unlike other parties, UDF has a geographical face with members spread countrywide. UDF is a neutral party of choice with a national outlook and our leader (Mudavadi) has the charismatic quality to be president and unite Kenyans. Other presidential aspirants are surrounded by advisers who would like to govern the country in the next five years in a dictatorial style,” Osman told the The Standard.

He says there are a number of current Members of Parliament sympathetic to the ideals of UDF who will join the party before the January 4 deadline.

Mudavadi is also known to have close links to the Kibaki State House with covert support from some of the President’s allies.

Short-lived vice presidency

Will the perceived State House support wield votes for the man from Sabatia? The jury is still out on this until March 4.

Historical background of Mudavadi’s detour from ODM to UDF makes his decision rather baffling and his choice of the route to State House even trickier. After making an about-turn to support then President Moi’s preferred candidate Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2002 General Election, Mudavadi met his political waterloo.

Not only did the Narc avalanche sweep away Kanu from power, handing Mwai Kibaki the presidency, but Mudavadi also lost his parliamentary seat and the short-lived vice-presidency. Had he joined the Raila Odinga-led ‘Kibaki Tosha’ Narc brigade, things could have been different.

In 2007, after getting a political lifeline from Raila, Mudavadi bounced back, recaptured his Sabatia seat, and threaded his way to the ODM top leadership.

The question many keep on asking is this: What injustice did Raila and ODM do to Mudavadi to warrant his split from the man who salvaged his political career?

In ODM, Mudavadi had built a formidable partnership with party leader Prime Minister Raila Odinga. His stature in the party grew, especially after ODM deputy leader William Ruto acrimoniously departed to form the United Republican Party (URP).

Could it be that Ruto and Mudavadi harboured presidential ambitions and with Raila virtually assured of the ODM ticket, they felt their chances had evaporated? Or were there any other reasons, ideological, personal or technical that prompted their bolting from the stable?

While their rivalry within ODM simmered, ironically the reasons Ruto and Mudavadi gave for leaving the party are rather similar – that there was “no internal democracy”. Ruto said there was dictatorship and they (Rift Valley MPs) were not wanted.

Mudavadi too said “there was no democracy” in ODM following a dispute over the mode of choosing the party’s flag-bearer in the presidential election after he had declared his intention for the State House bid. His abrupt departure raised eyebrows and questions.

While the answers may not have been fast in coming, Mudavadi has been busy on the campaign trail seeking support for UDF, which has experienced internal haemorrhage.

The DPM not only has to contend with his former captain Raila, but the prospect of his old nemesis in ODM, Ruto in URP. Then there is Uhuru Kenyatta and his party, The National Alliance (TNA) as well as Martha Karua’s Narc-Kenya, undeniably the ‘Big 5’ parties in the race to State House and the Assemblies.

Add to that the little “home matter” in Western Kenya where Trade minister Wetangula (Ford Kenya) and Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister Eugene Wamalwa are fighting to control the region and matters start to get a little complicated for Mudavadi.

Without a stronghold on their home turfs, presidential candidates have little chance of ascending to power or negotiating for a political deal.

In deciding to join UDF, it appears Mudavadi had very few options given that Uhuru was leaning towards Wamalwa. An alliance with URP was also bandied around, but with Ruto at the helm, the idea became a cropper.

UDF offered an opening, since there was no prominent politician eyeing the presidency on the party’s ticket suited to Mudavadi’s line of thinking just fine.

MPs allied to UDF include Jeremiah Kioni (Ndaragwa), Abdikadir Mohamed (Mandera Central MP) who is the chairman of Parliament’s Constitution Implementation Oversight Committee, and Assistant minister for Industrialisation Ndiritu Muriithi. Assistant minister for Youth and Sports and Mukurweini MP Kabando wa Kabando has since decamped to TNA.

Received support

Mudavadi also received support from Dr Boni Khalwale of New Ford Kenya, who is in his presidential campaign team. Last weekend, he met with fellow presidential aspirants Wetangula and Cyrus Jirongo of the Federal Party of Kenya in the Maasai Mara for “unity talks” convened by Central Organisation of Trade Unions Secretary General Francis Atwoli.

It remains to be seen what impact, if any, the Maasai Mara meeting will have in shoring up Mudavadi’s quest for the House on the Hill.

Now the only clear route for Mudavadi’s bid for State House is UDF and he recently launched the party’s secretariat to strengthen his campaign. Mohamed, who attended the launch refuted claims that he would defect to another party.

“I am in UDF and we are vigorously pursuing our goals as a party to support our candidate Mudavadi. We have already designed our vision, policies and platform,” Mohamed said.

Muriithi told the The Standard that UDF, under the banner Unity for Prosperity… A New Dawn, has come up with a party policy for the year 2013 to 2017, which will form the basis of the party’s manifesto to be unveiled soon.

And here lies UDF’s biggest challenge. The 12-point policy compact focuses on securing basic constitutional rights and freedoms, jobs, high economic growth rate, science and technology. Not very much different from what all the other political parties are promising.

“As a party, we are aiming at achieving transformation, not merely carrying out reforms; that is why we have come up with radical polices to realise immediate new Constitution dividend,” says Muriithi. The big challenge for UDF is selling this agenda to the electorate.

Unlike ODM which has prominent individuals who participated in the Second Liberation struggle and is campaigning on a platform of reforms, the newer parties have very little ideological grounding on which to base their bid for popularity.

 Their main recourse therefore lies in building powerful regional blocs (a difficult task indeed) before coalescing into loosely defined political alliances, whose survival on the ever-changing complex political scenario is akin to walking on thin ice.

Among radical measures UDF is proposing in its policy compact is the abolition of KCPE and the upgrading of 1,000 youth polytechnics to certificate and diploma-level colleges. UDF also says it would reverse the privatisation of the Kenya Power Company.

The risk of articulating such policies is that they can be construed to belong to the “command and control economics model” where the state controls everything (like in the former socialist governments of Eastern Europe, as opposed to the laissez faire economy of Adam Smith dictated by the law of supply and demand.

Critics will argue that the UDF agenda goes against the grain of the Constitution, does not encourage enterprise, is alien to the liberalised economy that Kenya has embraced and is thus not sustainable.

UDF must therefore secure a political foothold in the extremely polarised Kenyan political scene, while promoting practical economic solutions that can resonate with ordinary Kenyans.

Otherwise the party will have shot itself on the foot and Mudavadi’s chances of making it to State House in a tough race may go up in smoke.