Like its founder, Orange party has been an enigma for two decades

Kenya's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Party is marking its 20th anniversary at a defining moment. It is cast at the crossroads of history. How will the party contribute to the definition of Kenya of tomorrow?  

Like its founder, the late Raila Odinga, ODM has been a paradox. Like Raila, ODM has been the axis around which Kenyan politics has defined itself for the past two decades. Together with Raila, ODM has been the political entity to love, or to hate.

Political careers have been made and others destroyed because of the divide between hating ODM and Raila, or conversely, loving him. If you loved ODM in the wrong environment, you paid the price. The same went for hate. 

Now, with Raila out of the way, Kenya’s Orange party faces its greatest acid test of all time. For even as the movement takes stock of its two-decade history and seeks renewal, it is cast at the precarious crossroads of tensions between the ideals it has historically professed and the allure of surrender to a political establishment that it has always been at odds with. It is an establishment that is dangling sweeteners and temptations.  

Long ago

Never mind that the reigning king of the establishment was once, long ago, an avid member of the Orange movement. Never mind, too, that ODM’s nemeses now circle the party like vultures, driven by factors that have absolutely nothing to do with ODM’s traditional ideals.

The Orange party’s leadership, under the acting leader Oburu Oginga, is on the horns of a dilemma. Does it continue to seek the elusive pathway to Canaan — the imagined land of milk and honey — or does it settle for alluring pharaonic cucumbers, leeks, and melons,  readily on offer from President William Ruto’s State House? 

It is not that the democratic movement was always without blemish. Even under its now hagiographic leader, Raila, ODM often failed the test of its own ideals.

The history that Dr Oburu’s party is celebrating is founded on an anti-authoritarian ethos. It is the story of zeal for constitutional reform, popular mobilisation, and certainly a pseudo-democratic posture that captured the imagination of many. Its profile under Raila was pseudo-democratic, essentially because it preached water while drinking wine. 

Like many other political mass movements in Africa, ODM under Raila did not build strong institutions. Its charismatic leader was everything. Even now, in his demise, his name is still desperately invoked as the moral compass. It is also the glue around which future dreams seek to agglutinate. 

To retain the magnetism and gravitas it had under Raila, the ODM must find, or create, another dominant leader, before whom everyone will humble themselves. In the absence of this, they must make the institutions that Raila did not believe in to work.

Under Raila, decisions were made vertically. Raila sat at the apex. From here, orders flowed downwards. Party organs existed only to ratify such orders. They did not define or drive strategic decisions. And dissenting voices would be left behind.

At 20, is ODM now ready to transform itself into a party that answers to the democratic ideals that it has professed without practising? Is it willing to embrace internal competition through meaningful elections, both to party office, and in party primaries for the Orange ticket during elections?

Throughout the 20 years, party primaries were either absent or manipulated by the top to favour sacred cows. Such cows would secure party tickets, regardless of the opinion at the grassroots.

At the very best, therefore, party primaries could only be competitions within elite classes, in any one constituency. They would be violently contested and often lead to permanent separations. 

Musalia Mudavadi, William Ruto, Najib Balala, and Omingo Magara, all once members of the magical ODM pentagon, left acrimoniously, due to unresolved internal tensions. Also to leave similarly was Magarer Langat.

While the rest smelled the coffee and left when the coast was still clear, Magarer’s instincts failed him. Hence, he was eventually ingloriously ejected from a meeting of the then Coalition for Reform and Democracy (Cord), by hired goons. He was then the executive director of ODM. Raila and other Cord principals looked on passively as the ugly drama unfolded. 

20-year history

This kind of drama is part of the 20-year history that the Orange party is celebrating. It constitutes the kind of memory the party would perhaps want to be forgotten. Yet, to do so, it must completely shed off that kind of conduct, to replace it with a brand new political jersey, characterised by Orwellian “crimestop.” 

Oburu must resist the temptation to be like his late younger brother, who was at once the narrative, the glue, and the party.

ODM under Raila mobilised without ideology. Raila was the ideology. And often, the diehards would brazenly say, “Number one, ODM is Raila; and number two, Raila is ODM. And number three, if in doubt, refers to numbers one and two.”

That mindset may need to give way to a new age of robust branches, with youth and women’s leagues that are also ideological breeding grounds. And the ideology cannot be the leader. 

Appreciating this is more likely to rekindle the more positive and constructive elements of the Orange party at birth.

They could regenerate hope in the Kenyan dream that has sometimes been lost in ODM’s own internal contradictions on the one hand, and its dalliance with undemocratic outsiders on the other. As Winnie Odinga eloquently told ODM delegates in Mombasa on Friday, ODM was born in a hot melting pot. It was not born in a boardroom or bedroom.

History recalls that ODM was sired in rebellion and despair. Despair that the old constitutional order could be reformed. Total rebellion during the No campaign during the 2005 referendum announced the bath pangs of ODM. The baby arrived in the trauma of the 2007/08 post-election violence.

It made a powerful statement in the election by garnering the largest number of seats in Parliament. And it has since remained a formidable force both in Parliament and outside. 

Power sharing

In 2010, ODM spearheaded the reform that led to the enactment of Kenya’s present Constitution.

Then some believe, including this writer, that ODM won the 2007 presidential election, but the prize was stolen. That its leader, Raila, accepted a power-sharing arrangement with President Mwai Kibaki says a lot about the selflessness of both Raila and the party, during crises that could have destroyed the country. They accepted being the junior partners in a government that many believe was theirs. 

As Prime Minister, Raila endured provocation and humiliation by Party of National Unity (PNU) MPs and ministers, and even by President Kibaki himself. First, for every key Ministry under ODM, Kibaki had a corresponding Ministry with a PNU-ODM(K) Minister. The authority resided in the latter ministries, while ODM ministries were shells.

For their part, PNU ministers whom Raila was supposed to supervise spited him. Most did not even bother to attend his meetings. And in Parliament, he only led government business in name, as the relevant ministries circumvented him, with open public disdain. When he once lost his cool and threw up a tantrum on how the provincial administration could not even roll out the red carpet for him, or provide ablution facilities for him during public meetings, his detractors used this to ridicule him, together with ODM. They guffawed about their willingness to fix toilets for him, even in his official car, if he so desired. 

In Cabinet

Ruto led the defiant pack. At some point Raila attempted to sack him from the Cabinet, over alleged corruption. Ruto retorted that Raila was not the appointing authority. He did not recognise the dismissal. Never mind that Raila had negotiated with Kibaki all the ODM appointments to Cabinet. Kibaki himself rushed to Ruto’s rescue, issuing a statement to the effect that Ruto was still in Cabinet. 

That there were plots to break the party cannot be denied. Raila went out to reload it, in an effort that was fronted by Ababu Namwamba. Others were Milly Odhiambo, Rachel Shebesh, and Bishop Margaret Wanjiru. They gave it their best. Still, it was a wounded and limping ODM that faced the newly formed Jubilee Alliance of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto in the 2013 elections. 

The spirit of the party was wounded; the nation traumatized by what many saw as unfounded allegations that Raila had framed Uhuru and Ruto before the International Criminal Court at The Hague, over the post-election violence.

The election was lost, and two others after. Raila ate humble pie. He crossed the floor and joined Ruto in a confounding, unconstitutional outfit called a broad-based government.

That a government could be formed outside the framework of the Constitution and go on to function with impunity is a blot on both ODM and the late Raila. He dropped the ball of democracy and accountability. ODM has found itself between the proverbial rock and a hard place, amidst egregious breaches of human rights.

Even when Ruto and his Ministers called for the shooting to kill, and shooting in the legs of Kenyan youth, ODM’s position remained ambiguous. Raila’s political spirit would appear to have died the day he began working with President Ruto. 

But if Raila's spirit died, there would have been firm voices against the broad-based affair. Some derisively refer to it as “the broad-based nonsense.”

Foremost is the Secretary  General, Edwin Sifuna. Others with him have been Siaya Governor James Orengo, his Kisumu counterpart, Anyang Nyong’o, and MPs Caleb Amisi (Saboti), and Babu Owino (Embakasi East). These are Raila’s ideological orphans.

And they were orphaned before Raila died a physical death. Raila’s dalliance with Ruto was ideological death. It left his ideological children desperately hanging on to the party’s then 19-year-old professed progressive ideology. 

The battlelines have been drawn afresh with the ODM at 20 celebrations.

Should the Orange party remain in the broad-based entity? If it does, should it throw its support behind Ruto in the next election, now less than two years away? What should be the basis for remaining with Ruto? Some say they will remain, because Raila told them to do so. There could never be a more absurd reason for taking a position on anything – that I was told to do so.

The real drivers would appear to be gravy train factors, especially on the part of those who have already tasted the Ruto broth. Just how they leave behind the victuals and libations, to go back to the trenches, in the name of speaking for the people?

Some, like Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi, allege that Raila has been visiting them in dreams at night, biding them never to be parted from Ruto.

Then there is the “wait and see” lot, that is waiting for the winds of public opinion to decide for them.

Which of the two camps to join depends not on the leadership they will provide, but rather on the public currents in their part of the Kenyan electorate. This lot does not seem to stand for anything or believe in anything. It will pay for nothing, and die for nothing, except its stomach. 

Above all, there is Oburu. He was always keen to remain with Ruto, and he will remain there, barring an irresistible typhoon over Lake Victoria. Yet, was he the individual whom his niece, Winnie Odinga, was addressing in Mombasa? 

Fiery focus

Winnie has unveiled herself with the fiery focus of her late father, when he was not doing handshakes

Her celerity of mind, felicity of diction, her concision and precision — all these — are impressive.

In addition to her family’s traditional progressive ideological orientation, she is emerging with the eloquent poise that eluded both her father Raila, and her grandfather, Jaramogi.

The curtain is just beginning to rise on ODM at 20. We are going to need more wine, tea, and popcorn, or whatever. ODM at 20 is just coming to birth.

The prognosis indicates that we should expect twins. One twin looks set to be swept away by UDA vultures. The other one will gravitate towards the United Opposition. It is here that they will frame the 2027 election question.

What will be the question?