Musalia Mudavadi has never struck me as a smart, intelligent and tactful politician. He wears the demeanour of an intellectually lazy, coward, an indecisive politician whose only credit to Kenya politics is his sir name.
Don’t be fooled by Musalia’s obsession with talks about loans and borrowing. He masquerades as an economist, while in reality, he’s a motivational speaker in finance. Hearing him talk about his tenure as a Minister of Finance in the Moi’s Era, one is tempted to think Kenya’s GDP was rivalling Japan’s, Germany’s and South Africa’s.
He was tainted by the Goldenberg scandal – which remains the largest economic fraud in Kenya’s history where millions of dollars were pilfered from the treasury to offer compensation for a scheme where individuals were paid for exporting gold, even though Kenya has no commercial gold deposits. Francis Atwoli says Musalia used to sleep at the Goldenberg architect Kamlesh Patni.
Musalia Mudavadi: A history of indecisiveness
Musalia Mudavadi’s entry into politics was not a well-thought decision. When his father Moses Mudavadi passed away, he was persuaded to leave his practice as a land economist to take up the Sabatia seat in 1989 aged 29.
His father’s close ties with Moi ensured his political career scaled fast. He was appointed to the cabinet, serving in key positions, including finance minister between 1993 and 1997.
In 2002, while the wave of change was rocking the sorry-state of Moi’s 24 years of nothing, it was only conceivable that he was supposed to dump Kanu for the unbwogable Rainbow Coalition. Instead agreed to Moi’s plans to support Uhuru Kenyatta. Notably, even Moi never thought highly of him for president.
Mudavadi was hurriedly appointed vice-president at a time when parliament had already been dissolved. Musalia holds the record of serving the shortest period as Kenya’s vice-president – just two months.
Premium tears rolled on his cheeks when Moses Akaranga, a little known preacher, trounced him off the Sabatia seat that Musalia had held for more than 10 years.
Raila saves Musalia Mudavadi from political comatose
Raila Odinga breathed life into Mudavadi’s dead political career in 2005 and in 2007 picked him as his running mate. In the larger Pentagon, it must be recorded that Musalia was second to Raila, with William Ruto coming a distant third.
Thanks to his association with Raila, Musalia reclaimed his Sabatia parliamentary seat and was subsequently appointed deputy prime minister and local government minister, in the Grand Coalition Government. But he fell out with Mr Odinga early last year.
Ungrateful Musalia was furious about a clause in the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) manifesto which gave Raila the automatic right to be the presidential candidate. He announced that he would be standing for president himself on the ticket of the United Democratic Front, whose most influential backers were thought to be close to State House and President Mwai Kibaki.
In the subsequent General Election of 2013, Mudavadi’s Luhya community largely backed Raila. He was snookered by Kenyatta’s Jubilee Alliance. Uhuru and Ruto have thought of backing him for president but the plans were shelved after it become clear that his candidature was as weak as Stivo Simple Boy’s lyrics. He earned him a reputation for being seriously gullible.
His supporters view him as a sober, moderate and non-combative politician – a safe pair of hands. But, the word they have been looking for is COWARD.
Between 2017 to date, the son of Mama Hanna has moved from Nasa to One Kenya Alliance to supporting the Handshake to opposing it to Amani Party to signing an alliance with Ruto to form Kenya Kwanza.
Mudavadi signs a devil’s deal with Ruto
After threatening a thousand times that he will run for president in this year’s election, reality has settled on Musalia that that is a mere day’s dream. He has since elected to be anything that Ruto will decide for him. Much of a man who launched ‘earthquake’ President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga in January this year.
In a Kenya Kwanza Coalition agreement deposited with the Registrar of Political Parties last Sunday, it’s no doubt Ruto’s fattening Musalia for slaughtering.
The document was drafted by Tharaka Nithi Senator Professor Kithure Kindiki, a Ruto diehard and a man who’s taunted for the running mate position in the Kenya Kwanza. Question: Couldn’t Musalia afford to have legal and political representation to cut him a better deal?
Also, the document specifically states that the position of the running mate is a UDA affair, and exclusively shall come from the populous Kikuyu community. This implies Musalia and Luyhia nation will only see such a post from a side mirror of their vehicles.
What Ruto gives Mudavadi, Wetangula
Amani Party’s leader has been promised an amorphous position of the Prime Cabinet Secretary – not even in the constitution – and Moses Wetangula is to get the Speaker of the National Assembly if Ruto clinches Kenya’s top seat. In addition, Musalia will get 30% of the government – whatever this means. However, there’s a little complex equation to the matrix: Musalia and his crew must deliver 70% of the Western vote to Ruto’s basket.
And therein elephant in the room. Simple but necessary questions: what if – and it’s a big IF – Ruto wins but Musalia doesn’t deliver his part of the bargain?
This conditional clause is meant to throw Musalia Mudavadi into the slaughterhouse. Ruto knows Mudavadi can’t deliver 70% Western votes.
2017 IEBC report on the presidential election of 2017 vote in Luhyia Nation shows Raila won in four of the five counties and Mudavadi only claimed victory in Vihiga, where he received 82,426 votes to Raila’s 77,825. Nationally, Musalia only managed 3.96%.
Asking Mudavadi therefore to deliver 70% is akin to asking Homa Bay’s Cyprian Awiti to speak in Kiswahili while Kapsaret MP Oscar Sudi translates into English.
Ruto’s wider schemes against Musalia & Co.
Ruto knows Musalia won’t deliver part of the devil’s deal. If Ruto wins, he will win without Musalia’s 70% of the Western vote. And if he loses, Musalia will help him lose.
Either way, Ruto’s wider scheme is to bury the dangling Musalia’s political career. What this means is Ruto will not have to carry Musalia’s burden on his shoulders. Musalia will be rendered irrelevant. And since the Amani leader has shallow pockets, and with the new generation of politicians aggressively entrenching into the political scene, Musalia will find politics distasteful.
Ruto wants either to be an imperial president or an autocratic opposition leader. With Musalia Mudavadi , Moses Wetangula and others disposed and financially crippled, Ruto will have field days politicking.
