Amani Coalition Leader Musalia Mudavadi has spoken for the first time about his two week interlude as the Jubilee Presidential candidate in 2012.
In an extensive interview with the Star, Mudavadi painted a picture of high political drama and political deceit claiming that Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, Najib Balala and Chirau Ali Mwakwere persuaded him to become the Jubilee candidate, only to dump him two weeks later.
On Monday December 3, 2012, Mudavadi was in his Riverside house with Kakamega politician Bonny Khalwale, former minister Mukhisa Kituyi, former Minister Soita Shitanda and Eugene Wamalwa preparing for the launch of his presidential bid later that day at Uhuru Park.
They were crafting a coalition to be called Jubilee including Kanu’s Gideon Moi, Raphael Tuju’s PPP, Eugene Wamalwa’s New Ford Kenya. and Kenya National Congress’s Peter Kenneth.
Expert comment: Political promises are rarely kept
All the major groupings were racing against time to beat the December 4 deadline for the registration of their coalitions.
That same day ODM leader Raila Odinga had announced the formation of a new coalition named CORD at KICC with Ford-Kenya’s Moses Wetang’ula and Wiper’s Kalonzo Musyoka as his partners. He was frantically reaching out to Mudavadi to join him.
Kenyatta and his team were worried that their coalition lacked a person from the Luhya, second largest tribe in Kenya, and that Raila might convince Mudavadi to join him. The four jumped into Ruto’s blue Range Rover and Ruto drove them to Mudavadi’s Riverside home without notice.
“I was preparing to launch my presidential bid on that Monday when Kenyatta, Balala, Ruto and Mwakwere arrived in my house uninvited at around 11am. Kenyatta offered to support me with Ruto as my running mate. I asked them if they were serious and they said yes. I demanded we sign a memorandum of understanding, which we did only for this agreement to be disowned a few days later,” says Musalia.
Once Mudavadi signed the initial agreement, both sides called in their lawyers to draft a proper coalition agreement the same day so that it would be deposited at the Registrar of Political Parties Lucy Ndungu before the December 4 deadline. They talked for two hours before the lawyers retreated to an undisclosed location to finalise the coalition agreement.
“The lawyers Desterio Oyatsi representing Uhuru and Dan Ameyo for Musalia crafted a coalition agreement to be signed by party chairman. They would then join the other politicians and close allies at Laico Regency for an evening party to celebrate the new deal,” said Musalia.
The announcement at Laico Regency late in the evening that Mudavadi would be the candidate sent shock waves through Cord.
On December 4 two more agreements were signed between the then Deputy Prime Ministers Musalia Mudavadi and Uhuru Kenyatta.
The first was an addendum to the coalition agreement between
Uhuru’s TNA party and William Ruto’s URP party that now added Mudavadi’s UDF party and gave URP one third of Cabinet seats. In the second private agreement Uhuru surrendered his candidacy for the presidency to Mudavadi.
“The agreement was signed by Uhuru’s private residence on Dennis Pritt Road witnessed by Ruto in the presence of two lawyers – for Uhuru being Desiderio Oyatsi and for Mudavadi being Dan Ameyo. The only other persons being witnesses were Hon Beth Mugo and Hon Ngengi Muigai, who are both first cousins to Uhuru, and Jomo Gecaga, his nephew,” said a close associate of Musalia Mudavadi at the time.
That deal did not last. Balala called Mudavadi a few days later to tell him that they were experiencing problems convincing Kenyatta’s TNA CHECK supporters that their man was not going to be on the ballot. “He told me it was a hard sell,” said Mudavadi.
The old guard around President Kibaki and the National Intelligence Service had thought that Uhuru should not be on the presidential ballot because he was facing charges of crimes against humanity at the ICC. That might it difficult for him to get elected and also create complications if he had to stay in the Hague after he was elected.
However key members of Uhuru’s family and close supporters took the opposite view. They thought Uhuru should contest the Presidency because it would actually put him in a stronger position to fight off the ICC charges. Moreover the ICC charges could be used to position him a victim of a neo-colonial Western conspiracy that could solidify his voter support.
On December 18 Uhuru reneged on the deal and announced that “Shetani” and “dark forces” had forced him into it. In a statement Uhuru spoke of threats from “powerful persons” who got him to sign the deal to cede his presidential ambitions to Mudavadi for the sake of the country.
A week earlier delegates of Uhuru’s TNA party had passed a resolution rejecting the deal and insisting that delegates pick the party’s presidential candidate.
“I will only listen to your decision and nothing else. My message to Musalia is that if delegates pick him, I will not seek any position,” Uhuru responded.
After the deal collapsed, Mudavadi went ahead to announce his bid with the support of Kanu. Peter Kenneth decided to go it alone.
Musalia’s lawyer Dan Ameyo said this week that they were taken for a ride.
“Our intentions were put into an MoU that was to be binding to the two parties,” said Ameyo, “One party, who is not my client, failed to honor his part for reasons I can’t tell.”
Uhuru and Ruto kept the Jubilee name and changed it into the Jubilee Alliance used during the campaigns for the
March 2013 election.
“The MoU was deposited in 2012 but removed. They then deposited new MoUs under their new arrangements,” the Registrar of Political of Political Parties Lucy Ndung’u said this week.
Mudavadi told the Star that he could have gone to court to seek redress but he chose not to have a protracted legal battle.
He knew that filing the petition in the court or with the Registrar of Political parties would lock him as well as Uhuru out of the March 2013 election.
Yesterday Kakamega Senator Bony Khalwale declined to discuss the MoU saying, “I don’t want to offend you but I am no longer working with Musalia.”
“I have nothing say because I have nothing to say,” said David Mugonyi, spokesperson for Deputy President William Ruto.
Sources close to Wamalwa said that politicians from Central Kenya started demanding that Musalia fund them after he became the Jubilee candidate in December 2012. Potential governors and senators demanded Sh40 million each, MPs Sh20 million and MCAs Sh5 million each which Musalia refused to honor.
