MIB II: Violent ejection of party official presents picture of Raila Odinga’s party imploding

Speaking on the Nation FM “State of the Nation” morning show hosted by Angela Angwenyi on Wednesday, Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi and Kitutu Chache South MP Richard Onyonka differed sharply on the question of whether ODM leader Raila Odinga should hand over to a younger candidate come the 2017 presidential elections.

Mr Wandayi represented the views of MPs who are fiercely loyal to the party leader and consider any contemplation of a post-Raila ODM as traitorous and heretical.

Mr Onyonka, on the other hand, is emerging as one of the voices actively reviving the quest for alternatives after a lull following the infamous “Men in Black” disruption of the delegates conference in April, when it appeared that a grouping not favoured by the party bosses was on the verge of seizing control.

When challenged on why he does not speak his voice within the party organs instead of grumbling from the outside as if preparing the ground for an exit, Mr Onyonka responded that the parliamentary group and other party organs are rubberstamp affairs where anybody who raises contrary views is heckled and intimidated into silence.

The Nation FM programme aired just a day before the violent ejection of ODM executive director Magerer Lang’at from a parliamentary group meeting at the party headquarters on Thursday.

The treatment meted out to Mr Lang’at not just vindicated Mr Onyonka’s stand, but also brought powerfully back to the fore schisms seen at the aborted party polls that many thought had been papered over.

Mr Lang’at was not in the frontline at the party polls where a group headed by Mombasa governor Hassan Joho for chairman and Budalang’i’ MP Ababu Namwamba for secretary-general seemed set to defeat another fronted by nominated senator Agnes Zani, who Mr Odinga seemed to prefer as secretary-general.

But inside and outside the Kasarani Stadium venue, the executive director was manhandled by angry activists who were accusing the Joho-Namwamba team of being moles sponsored to wreck ODM from within by the Uhuru Kenyatta-William Ruto Jubilee coalition.

The mayhem at Kasarani was a major setback for the party, and initially the expectation was that those who felt they had been given a raw deal by the Odinga loyalists had been presented the perfect justification to walk out.

But Mr Joho and Mr Namwamba stayed put, helping the party maintain the façade of a national outfit even as tensions simmered within.

So did Mr Lang’at, a former MP for Kipkelion, who is one of the few notable figures from the Kalenjin region to remain by Mr Odinga’s side as other senior figures have progressively decamped.

Now the incident on Thursday will invariably put back the spotlight on the issue of whether there is still room in ODM for those who do not hail from Mr Odinga’s political bastion or otherwise owe him unquestioned loyalty.

The drama created the perfect scenario for exploitation by those who would want to depict ODM as an intolerant, violent outfit imploding from within.

QUIETLY DISBANDED

After the Men in Black fiasco, Mr Odinga took a long sabbatical in the United States, and then came back to launch the referendum campaign, in the process putting the aborted party polls on the back burner.

Along the way, the interim leadership put in place to hold the party together after the Men in Black fiasco was quietly disbanded.

The temporary solution brokered by Mr Odinga before leaving for the lecture and study tour of the US was a power-sharing deal incorporating representatives from both the rival electoral slates.

Mr Odinga remained as party leader, with Mr Joho as his deputy, Mr Namwamba as interim secretary-general and Aldas MP Aden Keynan interim organising secretary.

From the other camp, Senator Zani was named interim treasurer, Kakamega governor Wycliffe Oparanya interim chairman and Homa Bay senator Otieno Kajwang acting vice-chairman.

The party polls had approached with the two key positions, that of chairman and secretary-general, technically vacant after Mr Henry Kosgey and key Odinga ally, Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o, stepped down.

The former was seen to be looking for an exit after being left isolated in his Rift Valley homeland, which is fiercely URP, while the latter has been battling ill health.

It also happened that after the polling at Kasarani was abandoned following the violent intervention, all seats had already been declared vacant so there was no executive committee in place.

Somewhere along the way, however, Prof Nyongo announced that the situation reverts to the status quo that prevailed before the abortive polls, reclaiming the post of secretary-general and annulling incorporation of the Joho-Ababu camp in the interim executive.

It was unclear what became of the other vacant posts.

DISSENT AT THE COAST

While away in the US, Mr Odinga had made clear moves to mend fences with Mr Joho, and on his return seemed to embrace the Mombasa governor as one of his key men at the Coast.

However, divisions within the party were still being played out.

At the Coast, a sizeable group of MPs have made their dissent clear after the removal of Kilifi North MP Gideon Mung'aro as Cord deputy whip in the National Assembly.

Mr Namwamba has remained an openly disgruntled presence and always keen to play up the issue of ethnic Luhya discontent within ODM.

Then there is the Kalenjin question.

ODM drew its strength prior to the 2007 General Election on the powerful ethnic blocs that brought together Mr Odinga, and the two deputy party leaders, Mr William Ruto and Mr Musalia Mudavadi.

When Mr Odinga, as Prime Minister, fell out with Mr Ruto early in the life of the grand coalition government, the latter walked away with the largest chunk of the Kalenjin component that went on to deliver the Jubilee coalition victory in the 2013 polls.

In the run-up to those elections, Mr Mudavadi had also run off with a small chunk of the Luhya bloc, leaving ODM vulnerable as a largely Luo affair.

After Mr Ruto’s exit, the Kalenjin presence in the party was represented by then chairman Henry Kosgey and another former minister Franklin Bett.

Both quietly disengaged after failing to make an impression in their constituencies where Mr Ruto’s URP wing of Jubilee steamrollered over everything.

Although Mr Kosgey and Mr Bett did not officially defect, it is considered only a matter of time before they make the move.

They have been making friendly overtures, with Mr Kosgey already featuring on some State House lists for possible appointment to head a parastatal.

Mr Lang’at had, thus, remained about the only Kalenjin figure of note in the ODM machinery, but now has been handed the perfect excuse to bolt.

KIDERO FAULT LINE

According to Mr Onyonka, the executive director has been a moderate voice within the party, often appealing to Mr Odinga to accommodate the so-called rebel MPs.

The Kitutu Chache South MP says he skipped the Orange House meeting on Thursday on learning of a plot to unleash violence on those perceived as rebels, but he denies newspaper reports that he has recently hosted a series of meeting plotting to oust Mr Odinga.

He says that such accusations arise because of a fund-raising meeting where he praised Nairobi governor Evans Kidero as a suitable presidential candidate; raising the ire of Mr Odinga’s supporters who see the county boss as a traitor consorting with President Kenyatta and using huge donations at harambee meetings to destabilise the ODM heartland.

That introduces another fault line where Dr Kidero has been at the centre of rebellion from the hitherto impregnable Odinga bastions.

Cracks that appeared from the chaotic ODM primaries ahead of the general election came to rear their heads at the abortive party polls earlier this year where a number of Luo MPs were in open rebellion against Mr Odinga’s choices.

The moneyed Nairobi governor, with his harambee jaunts across the region, even though his constituency is the capital city, has become the face of Luo resistance to the Odinga hegemony.

The more incidents such as Thursday’s expose Mr Odinga, the more likely rebels in Luo politics will be emboldened to speak out.

They include Rongo MP and former Cabinet minister Dalmas Otieno, formerly a Kanu stalwart in the Nyanza region who crossed over to the Odinga side with the advent of multi-partyism, but then crossed back to familiar territory when his quest for a key office at the ODM polls was frustrated.

Mr Otieno has been the public face of an anti-Odinga movement in Nyanza, promising a political kalausi (tornado), and with Dr Kidero seen to front Jubilee interests in the region.

They claim to have the support of a number of younger legislators across Luoland, but it is difficult to gauge their movement’s strength because few of the MPs are daring enough to openly raise their voices in a region where support for Mr Odinga still borders on the fanatical.

LURING KEY BLOCKS

Jubilee will be watching with glee what seems like Mr Odinga’s self-inflicted wounds. Mr Odinga’s fanatical supporters may genuinely believe they are defending his interests, but they are playing right into the hands of Jubilee, which remains obsessed with chipping away at the opposition legend’s base.

Apart from sponsoring rebellion in the party strongholds, another key strategy has been to weaken it by luring key blocs from other regions and leaving it as a Luo affair.

The ruling Jubilee coalition moved swiftly to reap from the fallout occasioned by Mr Mung'aro’s ejection at the Coast, and will certainly move just as swiftly to exploit the violence visited on Mr Lang’at.

The internal turmoil is bound to distract ODM from the referendum campaign. Its junior partners in the Cord grouping — Mr Kalonzo Musyoka’s Wiper party and Mr Moses Wetangula’s Ford Kenya — will be looking on askance at the goings-on, and probably wondering whether Mr Odinga can still claim an automatic right to the coalition’s presidential ticket.

Jubilee strategists could not have come up with a better script.