It was fitting that the nations we call Kenya – of which the state is one part – afforded former Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga a superb farewell.
Today is almost two weeks after his passing, yet he is still the subject of much discussion and debate in the general public square – across mainstream and social media; in public places and private spaces.
It is fair to describe him, as many have done, as the most consequential politician of Kenya’s second post-independence stanza, which takes nothing away from Kibaki’s economic efforts, in which he also played a part.
There are even more arguments suggesting that, in Kenya’s post-independence history, we have had three politicians of lasting political consequence: Jomo, Moi and Raila. Not that we haven’t had others, especially in the fight for political pluralism and a new constitution, but it is these three men who have perhaps each shaped, for better or worse, what our politics looks like today.
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Yet the first two were Presidents, but he never was. After his first attempt in 1997, he famously endorsed Kibaki in 2002.
I will forever remember the electric atmosphere at Silver Springs Hotel – to which a friend had invited me – when he, and Prof George Saitoti, calmly announced NARC’s win in a crowded room where international press stood on tables. Hope was in the air!
It is easy to describe Raila by his subsequent presidential attempts. In 2007, we had a press headline speaking to his overnight lead by at least a million votes. 24 hours later, Kibaki was hurriedly sworn in for a second term, in the shadowy dusk of the evening.
By the time we got to the next election in 2013, we had endured a painful post-election pogrom but also found ourselves with a progressive constitution as one of the ten tasks PEV Agenda Four set out for us.
The 2013 and 2017 presidential elections bore the same watermark. Voter registration and/or turnout were off the charts. There is a formula to Kenya’s “normal” elections. Two thirds of eligible voters register.
Then two thirds of registered voters actually vote. But we had 86 per cent voter turnout in 2013; 78 per cent registered of whom 78 per cent voted in annulled 2017. Lest we forget, Kibaki won 2002 with 57 per cent voter turnout from two thirds registration. With more bandwidth, our Supreme Court might have elevated its 2017 decision from annulment to award.
The data around his final presidential attempt in 2022 is head-scratching. The numbers tell us Raila won 54 per cent of polling stations, 55 per cent of wards, and constituencies, and 58 per cent of counties. Or six of nine polling regions; five of eight former provinces.
Or statistically, 63 per cent of GDP and 59 per cent of households with roughly 10 per cent higher per capita income. Yet, his voter base, using this data, had greater poverty prevalence but better literacy.
But these weren’t the numbers that counted. President William Ruto’s 50 per cent plus one majority was secured by winning more in “Raila majority zones” (29 per cent) than Raila won in “Ruto majority zones” (21 per cent). If Kenya was America, Raila won the blue zones, his opponents the red ones. There is a real sense that he was the chief of Kenya’s democratic wing.
Yet, it would be simplistic to think of Raila through the narrow lens of electoral battle. The better way to remember him, as said before, is he was an idea. Normal politicians have ideas. Raila Odinga was an idea. A post-independence idea around freedom, liberty and nationhood. Methinks he was the idea to reconnect the Kenyan state to the Kenyan nation.
We, including yours truly, have been quick to dismiss the political arrangements into which he entered, from cooperation to coalition to handshake to broad-based government. But maybe, we do not see that we have a disconnect between the state and the nation.
That we need a more inclusive and responsive state that matches the diversity and dreams of the nation; not a nation of people repressed and suppressed by a state whose default position is “divide and rule”.
It is telling that, in organizing his funeral arrangements, the state struggled to come to terms with the wishes of the nation. This is exactly as it should be; the nation is the rationale for the state.
And this thinking must inform our third liberation, after independence in 1963 and the political pluralism to constitutional journey of the 1980s/90s to 2010. Raila’s task, in playing a leading role in our second liberation, is complete; the task ahead is to secure our third one.
Of course, short-term thinking is focused on the first election in two decades (except 2002) when Raila will not be on the presidential ballot.
It’s not even two weeks, but we already see it in the rush to all manner of guesswork and innuendo about the future of the ODM party, and political parties in general, as 2027 looms. This is the nature of today’s hollow, transactional politics.
Long-term dreamers might want to ponder the pathway that elevates Kenya to the next level. This is the call for tomorrow’s statesmen. Yet, today, we see a dearth of transformational leaders.
There is a third, less obvious angle that emerges from Raila’s passing. Many will recall the brave young lady who appeared on our screens during the Gen Z-led 2024 Finance Bill protests asking him to stay at home; basically saying “it’s OK, Baba, we’ve got this” (that is, we’ve learnt from your past (protest) efforts, we know what to do).
This can be read in many ways – for example, in only mentioning him, did she make him the “benchmark” for the political right to protest?
But a different way to view this message – using the earlier nation vs state context – is we suffer a state, and the politics that sustains it, which lacks the intergenerational lens to fix the nation.
Intergenerational is not about spontaneous responses to, say, Gen Zs (a group born in a specific time period, in this case between 1997 and 2012) but long-term, human rights-based action around age group needs (say, the food or health or income needs of children (0-18), youth (19-35), older members of society (60+) as our constitution defines, and the rest of us (36-59)).
That our political elites – who control the state apparatus – only retire when they die says it all. It follows that there will be many more Railas to come if we never actually fix the state – or more realistically because states are creations of violence, we will remain in a time-warp of protest!
It’s intergenerational, stupid! Of our four “opportunity” inequalities, it’s intergenerational inequality we ignore at our peril. We have made progress on geography (through devolution) and are at least struggling with social exclusion (including Article 27 discriminations) and gender. This is the state of our constitutionalism, not the constitution that Raila and others fought so hard for.
Consider these three unusual, random questions. Before the state, what about our nation? After our constitution, whither constitutionalism? Beyond the second, when is our third liberation?
Think about these “what” questions; then “whom” to answer them. Then assume “whom” equals “what”. Ergo, my humble take of Raila the “whom” as Raila “the idea” (the what)! Who’s next?
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By Dennis Kabaara