HOW KALONZO RAN WITH OUR CERTIFICATE

All eyes were now on the 2007 elections. on our side , nobody clearly declared that they would go for the Presidency. It was being hypothesized outside ODM circles that Raila would again play the role of a King maker. Kalonzo Musyoka was clearly ahead of Kibaki in the poles. There was a narrative being advanced that Raila was not electable just because he was a Luo. “What was wrong in being a Luo, were they not citizens just like the rest of us”, i constantly asked myself.

I have no doubt that this was among the factors that would later on propel me to support the Raila candidature, after our party primaries the following year. We could tell from the activities from the other side that we were giving them sleepless nights. They moved from post to pillar, pillar to post then back again. Charity Ngilu was the custodian of the Narc vehicle that Kibaki had used to romp home in 2002. She now seemed rather cagey about supporting Kibaki, or allowing him to use her bus back to Statehouse. The Kibaki inner core seemed worried that their man might very well find himself high and dry at the critical moment, completely without a Party.

After much deliberations, they came up with an amalgam of formation under the banner of the Party of National Unity (PNU). They launched it only a few days before the elections, indeed way after we had gone through our primaries and a lot had happened in our camp, including the voluntary exit of Kalonzo Musyoka and Dr Julia Ojiambo to try and map up their own Presidential path. Kalonzo broke away amidst controversy on how the party should determine its Presidential Candidate.

There was mounting suspicion amongst us who were in the top ranks of the Party now. The suspicions eventually broke our party into two, only a few months to the poll. We now had ODM Kenya, which went with Kalonzo and ODM party for the rest of us. Uhuru Kenyatta had announced that he would not be running for President. He would instead support Kibaki’s bid for the second term. The pollster kept us ahead of Kibaki on a two to one ratio. It was going to be a massive challenge for him to narrow the gap. There was also an aspect of recklessness on their part. It was as if they were determined to lose the election to us, Kimbwezi member of Parliament Kalembe Ndile was constrained to lament openly about some of the Kibaki people, ” Each time they open their mouth to say something, we lose ten thousand votes”, he said.

A profound moment for us came at a rally at Mama Hadija Grounds in Mombasa. There had been tussling between Kalonzo and Raila for sometime now on the method of presidential primaries. It was felt in Raila circles that Kalonzo thought he was the best candidate on the basis of what the pollsters were saying. On the other side, Kalonzo’s corner was said to believe that Raila’s people might manipulate the primaries to give their man victory. This precipitated an ugly incident at Mama Hadija’s hence changing the course of things and our fortunes from this moment.

When Kalonzo was invited to address the gathering, a section of the crowd immediately embarked on shouting him down using all manners of appalling words. Some suddenly pulled out and waved in the air crude carvings of hammers, their emblematic representation of the hammer car that Raila had recently brought in from America. They were essentially telling Kalonzo to shut up and cede ground to Raila. Kalonzo was completely petrified. He cut short his excitement and address to the crowd, politely withdrawing to the back, shortly afterwards, he announced he would no longer participate in ODM joint rallies.

Finally, Kalonzo decamped and teamed up with Julia Ojiambo, chair of the Labor Party of Kenya (LPK). The departure of Kalonzo, barely a few weeks to elections left us in a quandary. For he did not just leave alone. He had left with ODM Kenya Secretary General , Dan Maanzo and the party’s registration certificate. While we were still a mass movement, we had no Party. So, how would we face the election?. We needed to move very swiftly to remedy the situation.