WHY RUTO, MUDAVADI PACT IS A BULLET DODGED FOR RAILA.

When Musalia Mudavadi hyped up his party’s national delegates conference last week as an impending ‘earthquake’, just about everyone else appeared to believe that the biggest political casualty would be Raila Odinga.

The former allies’ messy falling-out over Mr Mudavadi skipping Mr Odinga’s mock swearing-in as the people’s president in January 2018, the distribution of political party funds among coalition partners in the defunct National Super Alliance (Nasa) and a disputed succession MoU is well documented.

Any chances of a reunion, negotiated by President Uhuru Kenyatta, went up in smoke with the derailment of the proposed BBI constitutional referendum and its lucrative power-sharing incentives in the courts.

It didn’t help matters that Mr Odinga seemed to believe the Amani National Congress (ANC) party leader has been using his famous surname to grossly exaggerate his political influence in Vihiga County.

A parting of ways looked inevitable, and Mr Mudavadi made it clear that he relished the opportunity to choose new political friends. Yet Mr Mudavadi, being Mr Mudavadi, has somehow contrived to hurt himself politically and strengthen Mr Odinga’s campaign.

Former National Assembly Speaker Kenneth Marende, famous for his Solomonic rulings during his tenure between 2008 and 2013, has likened the former vice-president’s move to work with Deputy President William Ruto to the act of a suicide bomber.

Implosion in ANC
Mr Marende’s characterisation of the new political marriage between Mr Mudavadi and Dr Ruto is borne out by the fact that only within days of its unveiling, there has been an implosion in ANC.

Close to half of ANC’s MPs have since shifted their loyalty to Mr Odinga’s Azimio la Umoja movement. Mr Mudavadi has put on a brave face, claiming the defectors had been bribed by the rival camp to cross over.

He has also sought to play down the magnitude of damage inflicted by the ANC exodus, citing past cases of opposition MPs who defected to the ruling party Kanu only to end up losing their seats in the subsequent by-elections. But the circumstances of the two sets of defections aren’t quite the same.

Defections close to an election normally suggest the perception of voters’ sentiment in an area.

In a political culture like ours, where individual stakes in elections are so high, politicians are generally reluctant to put their bets on losing horses.

The ANC defectors might also be excused for wondering why Mr Mudavadi is demonising them when he himself has effectively defected from the One Kenya Alliance (OKA) where he was a co-principal alongside Kalonzo Musyoka, Gideon Moi and Moses Wetang’ula.

If the exodus from ANC is anything to go by, Dr Ruto may soon discover he has been handed a shell of a party to negotiate a coalition deal with.

For Raila, Mudavadi’s ‘earthquake’ is a bullet dodged.

Sourced from Nation