Raila Odinga and the Spirit of Kenyan Democracy

Combating relentlessly for institutional reform, Odinga’s activism helped ship two of Kenya’s most consequential political transformations: the legalization of multiparty politics and the promulgation of the 2010 structure. Odinga’s balancing act as each a firebrand of resistance and an architect of reconciliation turned the defining paradox of his legacy, leaving supporters and critics alike to debate whether or not he was a revolutionary who compromised or a pragmatist who by no means misplaced his radical edge.

Born right into a outstanding political household, Odinga inherited each privilege and burden. His father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was Kenya’s first vp and an early critic of post-independence authoritarianism. Raila Odinga would take up that mantle, enduring six years in detention with out trial after being accused of involvement within the failed 1982 coup in opposition to the federal government of President Daniel arap Moi.

His battle for democracy didn’t finish along with his launch: Within the years that adopted, Odinga was arrested and detained a number of occasions through the nationwide push for multiparty politics, a battle that might finally deliver down Kenya’s one-party system. After his launch, Odinga briefly went into exile in Norway, the place he rallied worldwide consideration to Kenya’s human rights abuses and the suppression of dissent below Moi’s regime.

Those that had been near him say that interval steeled his political convictions.

“He didn’t see it as punishment however as a sacrifice, a chance to solidify his perception in a fairer, extra simply Kenyan society,” Willis Otieno, who served as Odinga’s presidential marketing campaign supervisor in 2017, instructed me. For Odinga, that battle turned the thread working by way of his whole political life. “He was a real social democrat who believed in social justice and fairness for all,” Otieno stated.

Kalonzo Musyoka, Kenya’s vp from 2008 to 2013, was Odinga’s longtime ally and his working mate within the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections. “He was an actual fighter, by no means afraid of taking the laborious choices,” Musyoka instructed me. “His days in detention gave him a specific character and perspective … he was enigmatic.”

The trail to Kenya’s 2010 structure ran by way of the nation’s bloodiest political disaster. In December 2007, Odinga confronted incumbent President Mwai Kibaki in an election that was marred by irregularities and a scarcity of transparency. When the outcomes confirmed Kibaki narrowly forward, Odinga rejected the result. The disputed vote plunged the nation into violence that left greater than 1,200 folks useless, and the top of Kenya’s electoral fee admitted that he couldn’t say with certainty who had truly received.

United Nations mediators then brokered a power-sharing deal by which Kibaki remained president whereas Odinga took a newly created put up of prime minister. Regardless of the uneasy coalition, what started as a bitter compromise quickly turned Odinga’s most consequential chapter.

As prime minister, he redirected his vitality towards tackling the structural roots of Kenya’s instability by creating a structure primarily based on the speculation that stronger establishments may stop future violence and outlast the ambitions of any single chief. The structure devolved energy from the presidency to counties, codified time period limits, created an unbiased judiciary, and enshrined a invoice of rights. For a rustic lengthy dominated by imperial presidents, it marked a profound reimagining of the social contract.

“Kenya’s 2010 structure created the potential for a extra democratic, accountable, and inclusive society,” Nic Cheeseman, a professor on the College of Birmingham who makes a speciality of African democracy, instructed me. “It’s a unprecedented legacy for somebody who was by no means president however formed the political structure of the nation.”

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“After each election, there was at all times a reform agenda,” stated Otieno, the previous marketing campaign supervisor. “He believed in pursuing change throughout the buildings that existed, not outdoors them.”

Odinga’s position within the reform course of mirrored a uncommon second of pragmatism in a area the place post-election violence typically entrenches authoritarianism fairly than reform.

“Typically, power-sharing offers merely stabilize elites,” Cheeseman stated. “Kenya was uncommon in that it produced a constitutional transformation that genuinely redistributed energy, at the least on paper.”

However the architect of Kenya’s most formidable reform challenge would spend the following decade battling to assert its fruits. In each the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections, Odinga maintained that he and Musyoka, his working mate, had been denied victory. The Supreme Court docket appeared to validate their claims in 2017, when it annulled the election over irregularities. However Odinga boycotted the next rerun, arguing that the electoral fee had did not implement essential reforms.

The expertise, Musyoka recalled, solely strengthened their bond. “Odinga turned like a really pricey good friend and a pricey brother,” he stated. “The nationwide good is what saved us collectively.”

Nonetheless, Odinga’s profession is inseparable from his repeated electoral defeats. He ran for president 5 occasions between 1997 and 2022, shedding every time and alleging fraud after each contest. But even earlier than these high-profile battles, he had established a sample of performing on precept. In 1994, Odinga resigned from his parliamentary seat and FORD-Kenya, the social gathering his father had shaped—a uncommon transfer in Kenya’s historical past.

Odinga contested the by-election below his new social gathering, the Nationwide Improvement Get together, and received decisively, demonstrating a lifelong behavior of staking his political future on well-liked assist fairly than social gathering equipment. This mixture of daring, principle-driven motion and repeated electoral contestation created a paradox that outlined his public picture as each the tireless champion of democracy and its most aggrieved participant.

Odinga’s pragmatism, nonetheless, typically tempered his defiance. The facility-sharing deal of 2008 confirmed his willingness to compromise for the sake of stability, and in later years, he continued to pursue reconciliation even with fierce rivals.

In 2018, he shocked the nation by becoming a member of palms with then-President Uhuru Kenyatta after a bitter election, framing the transfer as an act of nationwide therapeutic. The 2 males grew unexpectedly shut within the years that adopted, and their cooperation reworked the political panorama, sidelining Deputy President William Ruto and culminating in Kenyatta’s determination to again Odinga’s 2022 presidential bid.

Ruto, who had been Kenyatta’s working mate in two earlier elections, framed his personal marketing campaign as a revolt in opposition to entrenched political dynasties—an implicit jab at each Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first president, and Odinga, the son of its first vp. Although Ruto finally received, Kenyatta and Odinga’s alliance upended Kenya’s long-standing political fault traces, uniting former rivals and reshaping the nation’s concept of opposition politics.

In a assertion on X following Odinga’s demise, Kenyatta mirrored on their unlikely friendship and a bond that stemmed from “a typical need to see a united Kenya.” Kenyatta stated he had misplaced “a good friend and a brother,” including that “he was a formidable opponent, however he was an much more invaluable ally in the reason for reconciliation.”

That intuition for conciliation would resurface in Odinga’s ultimate months, when he signed an settlement with Ruto to type a coalition authorities between the Orange Democratic Motion—Odinga’s social gathering since 2005—and Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance. The deal adopted weeks of youth-led protests and a violent authorities crackdown that in 2024.

Odinga’s determination to hitch Ruto made many younger Kenyans really feel betrayed, as the person who had lengthy embodied resistance gave the impression to be siding with the institution that he as soon as opposed.

“By signing as much as Ruto and propping him up at a degree when youth-led protests had been so sturdy and Ruto was on the again foot, he successfully enabled the institution to proceed,” stated Cheeseman, the professor.

Musyoka, who had stood beside Odinga by way of many years of battle, refused to observe him into Ruto’s authorities, a symbolic rupture after years of political partnership. He stated Odinga believed becoming a member of Ruto was essential to avert a attainable navy takeover after weeks of unrest. “He thought the nation was on the brink and wished to avert chaos,” Musyoka stated. “However many younger folks felt he had deserted them.”

Whether or not Odinga joined Ruto out of pragmatism, patriotism, or a long-term plan to problem him sooner or later won’t ever be recognized. His sudden demise left that query unanswered, cementing, ultimately, his status as “Agwambo,” the mysterious one.

But at the same time as he reconciled with former rivals, Odinga’s earlier defiance has left an enduring imprint on a brand new technology of Kenyans. In a ceremony in 2018 that was held in defiance of the state, Odinga took an oath inaugurating himself because the “folks’s president,” planting the seeds for the protests led by Kenya’s youth in 2024.

“It despatched a message throughout to all Kenyans that finally, energy resides in you, and you may at all times problem the state,” Otieno stated.

Mockingly, the person who spent many years preventing inside and for Kenya’s establishments could have inadvertently impressed a technology extra prepared to function outdoors them. Kenya’s Era Z-led protests have been notably leaderless and rejected conventional political figures, together with—at first—Odinga himself. But their assertion of well-liked sovereignty and their willingness to instantly problem the state echoed the “folks’s president” second that got here seven years earlier.

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Additional, Odinga’s profession illustrates a elementary problem in African politics: the extraordinary issue of opposition politics in programs designed to entrench incumbents. African presidents sometimes management state sources, safety forces, media shops, and electoral equipment. They will deploy patronage to fracture opposition coalitions and repression to intimidate opposition leaders. On this context, merely surviving as a related opposition power for many years, not to mention driving constitutional reform, is an unlimited achievement.

Odinga’s passing has reignited debates about his complicated legacy as a person who bridged resistance and reconciliation in addition to radicalism and restraint. Musyoka described him as “probably the most consequential chief within the battle for the second liberation,” a champion of multiparty democracy and devolution who by no means relented in difficult the “imperial presidency.”

But Odinga’s most enduring contribution could have been his success in spreading a perception amongst atypical residents that constitutionalism might be a device for justice fairly than an instrument of oppression. His life demonstrates that efficient politics are attainable by way of opposition channels and that power-sharing offers aren’t at all times an indication of degrading rules however, fairly, can point out reform from inside.

Although by no means president, Odinga expanded the democratic creativeness of a nation.