{UAH} Pojim/WBK: The Coast Can Learn From The Luo Vote Block | The Star
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The Coast Can Learn From The Luo Vote Block
If you look at one of those old black-and-white photos from the early 1960s, which feature our founding President Jomo Kenyatta, you will notice something very interesting.
In the great majority of these photos, you will see two iconic Luo leaders on either side of the President. You will see his Jomo Kenyatta's Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga on one side; and the Kanu secretary-general, and influential Cabinet minister, Tom Mboya on the other.
There were of course other men of influence who featured in these photos, and who were no doubt close to Jomo Kenyatta: the AG Charles Njonjo, Minister of State Mbiyu Koinange, Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Njoroge Mungai, and so on. But there can be no doubt that the two Luo leaders were very much at the centre of power in the early 1960s.
All these men are now long dead, except for "Sir Charles" Njonjo who is not only still alive and now in his 95th year, but occasionally contributes his insights to this very newspaper.
The much-dreaded Kikuyu-Luo hegemony
But the greater point is that what these men represented was the much-dreaded Kikuyu-Luo hegemony, which in those days had established its own "tyranny of numbers" much like what the Jubilee government of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto now has.
And if you had asked anyone back then, who Jomo Kenyatta's successor would be - given that Jomo Kenyatta was already a very old man - any informed observer would have suggested that it could only be either Jaramogi Odinga or Tom Mboya.
So what happened? Why is it that it was not until 1992 that we had a Luo politician running for President? This was Jaramogi Odinga returning to the political arena after a 20-year absence, enforced first by the Jomo Kenyatta government, and then the Daniel Moi regime which followed. And he did well enough, coming in third in a race where the opposition was hopelessly split into factions. The best he could manage thereafter was to be the leader of the opposition in Parliament.
In 1997, Raila Odinga, Jaramogi's son and now the former Prime Minister, tried his luck, and he too was third. He has since then twice been the runner-up in somewhat controversial Presidential elections, in 2007 and 2013.
Why no Luo succeeded President Jomo Kenyatta
But my main point is this: How is it that we did not have a Luo President succeed Jomo Kenyatta? For back then we had more or less the same situation as we do now, in which it is widely assumed that William Ruto will in due course succeed Uhuru Kenyatta as President of Kenya.
Jomo Kenyatta, after all, would never have been President without Luo support, any more than Uhuru Kenyatta could have won in 2013 without Kalenjin support which Ruto brought to the table.
Indeed, the two Luo leaders, Jaramogi Odinga and Tom Mboya, were in a much stronger position since there was a viable alternative to Kanu, which was actually preferred by both the Kenyan white settler community and the British colonial administration in Kenya as being composed of "moderates".
This alternative was Kadu – the Kenya African Democratic Union – to which the coast's own Ronald Ngala belonged, as did many leaders from several other "minority communities". If the Luo had deserted Kanu to join Kadu, that would have marked the end of Jomo Kenyatta's dreams of the Presidency.
The reason why this seemingly invincible Luo grip on national political power which they shared with the Kikuyu as the dominant political communities of those days, is very simple – the Luo were not united. While the Kikuyus were firmly behind Jomo Kenyatta to the very last man.
Tom Mboya and Jaramogi Odinga were in fact the most bitter political rivals imaginable. And it was not just a matter of personal differences or conflicting ambitions. It was no less than a deep and unbridgeable ideological gulf which separated the two.
The Cold War
For that was the time of the Cold War, when the capitalist West (the US and Western Europe) contended for global dominance with the communist East (the USSR and China). And in most African nations just emerging from years of colonialism, each group had "their man" in place, with the Eastern Bloc's favouring Jaramogi Odinga, while the Western Bloc's "darling" was Tom Mboya.
The political drama of the early years of Independence then played out as a titanic struggle for power in Jomo Kenyatta's shadow, between Jaramogi Odinga and Tom Mboya, both of whom commanded considerable resources from their friends in foreign countries.
The historical consensus is that Tom Mboya (discreetly supported by Kenyatta, who had little taste for communism) won this struggle hands down. Jaramogi Odinga was defeated, humiliated and marginalised. He ended up leaving Kanu altogether to form his ill-fated Kenya People's Union (KPU), which only ended in his further marginalisation and ultimately, detention without trial.
But Mboya, who was routinely spoken of as a political genius, did not live to enjoy the fruits of his brilliance. He was assassinated in broad daylight in 1969. The Luo were not to see another one of their sons in top political office again, until Raila Odinga became Prime Minister in 2008, a clear 40 years later.
In short, Luos paid a steep price for being a divided community. One moment, the Presidency seemed within reach; and next moment, they were on a 40-year march through the political wilderness.
A vital lesson for the coast
All this history should be of great interest to the people of the coastal region, for it carries a vital lesson for us.
Last week I wrote about how despite being the second most populous community in Kenya, the Luyia have always remained a political afterthought for those seeking a "swing vote". And this is largely because they have no political unity.
Indeed the Luyia have been known to vote out sitting Vice Presidents from their community, not once but twice (Musalia Mudavadi in 2002; Moody Awori in 2007). The fact that these men were just "a heartbeat away from the Presidency" apparently did not concern the Luyia voters at all.
The coast may not have spurned Vice Presidents in this way. Indeed we have never had one. But we have nonetheless had the same scattered voting patterns and lack of political cohesiveness as the Luyias.
Well, the Luo are very different. And it seems that they learned well the lessons from their disappointments in the 1960s.
Marching into the polling boot
You can question whether the Luos will register in large enough numbers for any election. You can also wonder if they will support a Luo candidate or support some other candidate. But what is never in doubt is that once the Luo have settled on a certain political direction, they will all march into the polling booth, and cast their votes in that direction.
In 1992, all the Luo Presidential votes went to Jaramogi Odinga. In 1997, all their votes went to Raila Odinga. Both men lost, but that did not seem to matter. The Luo vote remained united. And when in 2002, Raila Odinga as the Luo political overlord threw his full weight behind Mwai Kibaki, not even the historical political rivalry between the two communities could get in the way. An estimated 98 per cent of all Presidential votes cast by the Luo community went to Mwai Kibaki.
When Raila and Kibaki fell out, this did not cause the Luo voters to desert their leader as having led them into a political dead end. The Luo remained united behind Raila, and supported him right through to a very narrow defeat in 2008 (which led to the post-election violence, and ultimately to the Grand Coalition Government in which Raila was to serve as Prime Minister.)
This is in sharp contrast to the fate of former President Daniel Moi. Despite having led the Kalenjin since the 1960s, once his chosen candidate for the Presidency in 2002, Uhuru Kenyatta, lost the election, Moi was to see the Kalenjin voters turn their backs on him. Come the 2007 general election, not only did three of Moi's sons who were candidates in that election lose to those candidates supported by Raila Odinga's ODM party, but property belonging to the Moi family in the Rift Valley was even vandalised by locals, in acts of pure malice.
Only now is Senator Gideon Moi struggling to regain the former political influence of Kanu, the political party his father led for 24 years as President. But even then, there is talk of the Kalenjin vote which was completely united in the last four general elections, splintering into "South Rift" and "North Rift" votes.
This may not be surprising, as up to 2002, the Maasai community voted in tandem with the Kalenjins. But they have long drifted away, and splintered into rival groups, with little sign that there will be any unified Maasai vote anytime soon.
Sitting at the big table
That is why I hold up the Luo voters as the example which the coast communities must emulate.
Whether in victory or in defeat, the Luo remain united as a voting bloc. No attempts to create alternative power centres within the community have ever succeeded. And what gives Raila Odinga his enduring influence and potency is that we all know that no matter what happens, come the next election, there will be roughly 1.5 million Luo voters lining up behind him, no matter how the rest of the country votes.
Even when their top leaders were out of high office, the Luo have never been anybody's political afterthought. They have always been at the centre.
And I will not even pretend that this is my personal insight. My late friend and mentor, the late Karisa Maitha, the last leader to get anywhere close to uniting coastal voters, used to repeatedly remind us that whereas the coast and Luo Nyanza had roughly the same number of voters, the Luos always had a voice in national politics, while the coast with its divided voting pattern was only an afterthought and always taken for granted.
So when a long-neglected region like the coast decides to end their tragic political marginalisation and seeks to "sit at the big table" so our leaders too may demand our share of national opportunities, there is no better example for us to follow. The Luos, through thick and thin, always remain one united vote bloc. And that is what the coast has to become – a united vote block, casting their ballots as one, through thick and thin, which can be respected by all Presidential aspirants.
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