Down Memory Lane: Reflections on the 2002 KANU-NDP “Merger”

18^th March, 2002 was an important date in Kenya’s recent history, yet many who were present then have forgotten it, and a host of young people know close to nothing about it. Karl Marx memorably asserted that History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Marx’s co-ethnics, the Jews, say that “It is in forgetting that we go back into captivity.” Indeed, it has often been said, very correctly, that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The Preacher declared:

“That which has been is that which will be,

And that which has been done is that which will be done.

So there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one might say,

‘See this, it is new’?

Already it has existed for ages
Which were before us” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10; Holy Bible).

 

We are in for another season of party “mergers”, “dissolutions”, and coalitions. I want to tell a true story which many young Kenyans probably do not know, and which they, regardless of their political affiliation, all need to hear in order to make sense of what is currently taking place around them. Thus whether you are sold out to the Jubilee Party (JP) or have thrown your lot with the National Super Alliance (NASA), whether you are in the Third Way or plan to create a Fourth, Fifth or Sixth one, consider the reflections below.

 

On 18^th March 2002, Kenyans witnessed a strange phenomenon indeed - Raila Odinga, who for decades had been synonymous with opposition politics in Kenya, and who had spent considerable time in detention during Moi’s presidency, led his troops, then under the National Development Party (NDP), to join the then ruling party - Kenya African National Union (KANU). They “willingly” dissolved NDP, whereas the narrative in the run-up to the event had been that the two parties would merge. This was the culmination of a warming of relationship between KANU and NDP that began soon after the 1997  General elections - a relationship which was first referred to as “co-operation”, then “partnership”, and which culminated in the “merger” on 18^th March 2002, with KANU briefly changing its name to “New KANU”.

 

At the Kasarani Gymnasium where the “merger” took place, then President Daniel arap Moi drew a parallel between what was happening on that day and the dissolution of the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) and the relocation of its members to KANU in 1964 - a move which Raila’s late father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, in his “Not Yet Uhuru” (1967), had confessed that he deeply regreted. In the 2002 deal between KANU and NDP, Raila was made Secretary-General of KANU, with Moi as Chairman with enhanced powers, and with four vice Chairmen, namely, Uhuru Kenyatta, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Katana Ngala. Raila’s troups were assured through amendments in the party’s constitution that their man would be second in command to Moi, and they firmly believed that this meant that he would be Moi’s successor.

 

However, on 31^st July 2002, about four-and-a-half months after the dissolution of NDP, Moi declared Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta his preferred successor, after nominating him to Parliament to replace the late Mark Too who “voluntarily” resigned from that slot. Consequently, about two-and-a-half months later, Raila led a formidable number of KANU heavyweights to quit the party and form the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) out of the Rainbow Alliance - a group that had been formed within KANU to protest Moi’s choice of Uhuru as his successor, and which included Kalonzo Musyoka, George Saitoti, Moody Awori and Mosalia Mudavadi, among others (Mudavadi later found his way back to KANU as Vice-President in place of George Saitoti, and became Uhuru Kenyatta’s running mate during the 2002 Presidential Elections). The LDP then joined forces with Mwai Kibaki’s National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK) to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), with Raila declaring “Kibaki Tosha (Kibaki is fit [to be President]).”

 

NARC went on to get a landslide victory during the elections held in December 2002, apparently, but only apparently, frustrating Moi’s “project” of making Uhuru Kenyatta his successor. Yet one of the ironies of history had occurred: Kibaki, who only left KANU to join opposition politics after the struggle for the return of multi-party politics had been won, got the ultimate political prize, while Raila, who had been in the trenches fighting the KANU Leviathan for more than two decades, missed it.

 

Yet Raila’s woes were not to end with the defeat of KANU at the ballot box in December 2002; for soon after Kibaki took power, he (Kibaki) damped the pre-election Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between his NAK and Raila’s LDP factions of NARC, and gave his wing of the coalition almost unfettered power while subjugating the LDP wing to “flower girl” or “page boy” roles. Kibaki’s men even chided Raila for having accepted to join the coalition on condition that he would be made Prime Minister, all the while knowing very well that the post of Prime Minister was not provided for in the then Constitution.

 

Following the 2005 “Banana-Orange” Constitutional Referendum which Raila’s wing of NARC resoundingly won, Kibaki sacked all cabinet ministers allied to Raila, and even brought in KANU MPs into his cabinet - the NARC dream had been snuffed out, and the scene set for the 2007/2008 post-elections crisis. One result of that crisis was the crystalisation of the closing of ranks between Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta, leading to Kibaki’s appointment of Uhuru as Deputy Prime Minister in the Coalition Government that was formed after the imbroglio.

 

In Raila’s camp, the narrative has consistently been that Raila knew all along that by joining KANU he would immobilise it, thereby ochestrating its defeat. The truth, however, is that Raila’s plan of becoming President through KANU was frustrated by Moi - the self-declared “Professor of Politics”. With hindsight, it is clear that Moi lured Raila into dissolving NDP so as to immobilise him politically. Indeed, by the time Raila returned to the opposition about two-and-half months before the 2002 elections, those who had remained in the opposition had already shared out the plum jobs among themselves, so that he really had no choice but to support Kibaki as a way of punishing Moi. What is more, since LDP’s goal was to keep Uhuru Kenyatta from ascending to power, it is now manifest that their plan eventually came to naught when Kibaki, who had run against Uhuru in 2002, clearly indicated his choice of Uhuru as his preferred successor in 2013.

 

It is noteworthy that the 2002 Presidential elections, in which Mwai Kibaki won over Uhuru Kenyatta, were the only ones that were widely considered to be free and fair. Indeed, many boldly declared at the time that Kenya’s democracy had matured, whatever that means. Many could not foresee that the very next elections would drive Kenya to the brink of the precipis. Yet the 2002 elections were unique in that the two leading presidential candidates were both Kikuyu, thereby considerably reducing the impact of politicised ethnicity (or ethnicised politics). Kibaki’s 2002 presidential candidacy, supported by two large ethnic groups (the Kikuyu and Luo) and a number of not very small ones, got a landslide victory, making it difficult for the loser to contest it or tinker with it. Come the 2007 elections, and the old rivalry between the Kikuyu and Luo elites was revived in the persons of Kibaki and Raila, and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

As NDP was preparing to “merge” with KANU on 18^th March 2002, I repeatedly questioned the wisdom of this move in conversations with fellow Luo people, expressing serious doubt at the possibility of Moi tapping Raila for his successor. However, many of them replied to me in our shared tongue, “ONdiki”, that is “It is written”. They were referring to the fact that Moi and Raila had agreed to reconfigure the power arrangement in KANU to suit Raila’s presidential ambitions, and that the terms of the reconfiguration had been put down in writing by the party constitutional amendment that stipulated that the Secretary-General (read “Raila”) would be second in command. A fellow Luo even accused me of wishing Raila ill, and declared that I was one of the many Luos who are hell bent on pulling their brothers down instead of supporting them in their endeavours to achieve great things! In response, I told them that they had an inordinately strong faith in written agreements. They were soon to begin to see what I meant when, as they were smarting with disappointment and anger due to Moi’s choice of Uhuru Kenyatta as his successor, Moi himself declared to a crowd in Kisumu that “KANU IKO NA WENYEWE (KANU has its owners).” History had validated my evaluation.

 

A consideration of the foregoing events leads to at least four conclusions:

1.      Kenya’s political parties are vehicles of immediate convenience rather than carriers of ideology.

2.      Kenya’s ethnic elites, like their counterparts all over the world, are guided by expedience rather than principles.

3.      It is crucial that a coalition with a wide appeal be formed by either one of the main contestants for power to ensure a landslide victory that would be difficult to distort through electoral malpractice or to competently challenge in a court of law.

4.      Politicised ethnicity (or ethnicised politics) is with us to stay. Consequently, contrary to the prescription of Western liberal democracy that we build an ethnically blind society, we would do well to factor ethnicity into our political engineering instead of condemning it, for such condemnation has only produced a public culture of hypocrisy - where we declare that “We are one”, all the while executing ethnically-based political strategies.

 

 

Reginald M.J. Oduor, Ph.D.