then proceeded to lose every election, sometimes with catastrophic consequences for the citizenry. Was this a patriot or a megalomaniac?
It is a good bet that all the sitting ODM members of parliament and senators are a worried lot because they were not elected but selected and are very likely to lose their seats at the next elections as the people get to finally choose their representatives.
Those token loyalists that were appointed to government as part of the broad based farse are hanging by a very fragile political cord as they certainly do not have a popular mandate supporting them and do not represent ODM point of view.
If a fallen hero’ s legacy is determined by the stability of the party and the systems he had put into place, then Baba fails dismally as his personal party, and the use of the term‘ personal’ is deliberate because the party is disintegrating.
Baba failed to envisage the party beyond himself, but this is not an anomaly in Kenya since all political parties are simple political vehicles to power and do not represent any ideology or commitment to Kenyan nationhood.
These tribal parties are simply bargaining chips that are of use only at the time of elections and are parked until the next election. It is not that Baba left shoes that were too big for a successor to fit in, he simply left no shoes at all.
There are those who feel that the preservation of the Odinga mystic is a requirement to the preservation of the party but this just confirms the cult hold
When Baba passed on, the country quickly overlooked the fact that he was a head of a small nuclear family that were devasted by the loss of a husband and a father and everyone projected him as the father of national opposition and took over his life.
that the family has had on the community, a notion opposed by many progressive leaders in the region.
So, the deputy party leader did not ascend to the top position as would be expected in a functioning party since he must have been selected to that position on merit, one assumes, and he proceeds to claim that he stepped aside for unity.
Stepping aside to appoint Baba’ s older brother to the party leadership begs more questions than answers since in the African tradition Baba should have deputized him, why would one put in power a person everyone knows only survives in politics as a Baba prop.
Even the daughter of the scion has publicly questioned the choice of the leadership and wondering why the leadership was not opened for contest by the various qualified party stalwarts that she feels would add real value to the party. That is her uncle.
Ochieng is aware that the big rift in ODM has not been addressed. There are those in ODM who did not support Baba’ s dalliance with the administration aware that they were at the cusp of toppling an unpopular government when their leader capitulated.
Those are the ones that insist that an individual in the name of Baba went to bed with the enemy but not the party but as one can very well imagine this is a rather tenuous argument since drawing a line between ODM and Baba is pure semantics.
forefront of sowing mistrust and dividing the party. The government is at present the good guy that respects and honors Baba’ s people.
The charade continues as the government moves to appoint the widow as a government envoy, more shiny things in the face of a constituency more impressed by form rather than substance and a canny politician giving peanuts for loyalty.
Ochieng is aware that the last word on Baba’ s legacy will be determined by whether all the political orphans in the current political arena can take advantage of the void left by their titular departed leader and forge a unity to challenge the incumbents.
The seeds of confusion have been scattered by a cynical government and one wonders if Baba shall truly ever be remembered as the father of opposition. Do we even know whose father Baba is, that of a corrupt government or an opposition in disarray?
If like a pack of baying wolves, a disorganized opposition, each try to dislodge the current administration, they will spectacularly fail. The opposition must decide what their principal goal is- simply to remove an incompetent government, not who leads. A leader shall arise!!!
There is also the young ODM Turks who were Baba’ s proteges, who feel that they are not being given a shot at the leadership and an opportunity to really make the party a national one to stem any future attempt to regionalize the party.
The only people smiling at the current confusion in ODM is the current administration who have been in the
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