Raila’s 1997 loss, failed efforts to unite opposition

With public conversation now shifting to the 2027 elections and the spirited efforts by the opposition to unite to take on President William Ruto, the failed attempts by the late Raila Odinga to unite the anti-Daniel Moi forces have become a useful reference.

As the former Prime Minister made his debut in presidential politics in 1997, he had been spirited in seeking to unite the opposition to face Moi—then President—in vain.

He did not just lose the polls, he also got betrayed.

In his autobiography, Raila Odinga: Flames of freedom with Sarah Elderkins, the former PM says after he left Ford Kenya and acquired the National Development Party, he decided to take a first stab at the presidency.

But in the run-up to the election, there were many candidates, including Mwai Kibaki of the DP and Charity Ngilu of the SDP among others.

Richard Leakey, Paul Muite and James Orengo—in a campaign to be brokers to bring the candidates together—contacted all who had declared their candidature, to seek consensus.

“We agreed to approach a few neutral personalities with a view to possibly fronting them as compromise candidates,” he writes, naming Kivutha Kibwana, Willy Mutunga and Professor Wangari Maathai as those floated as possible candidates.

Raila was tasked with seeking out Maathai to convince her but at her office, she flatly rejected, citing her frustration in the previous poll, when some presidential candidates refused to accept Jaramogi as a compromise candidate.

“In 1992, Wangari had led a team that had camped in the park opposite the GPO in Nairobi and collected signatures from the public in an effort to unite the opposition behind one candidate—but their final recommendation, that Jaramogi be that candidate, was rejected on flimsy grounds concerning circumcision.”

After the next meeting with the Orengo team, the brokers reported that Kibwana and Mutunga had both declined the offer of being compromise candidates “for fear of being portrayed as threats to community unity”.

Raila on his part, reported to the team that Wangari had accepted to be the compromise candidate “but her acceptance was negatively, rather than joyfully, received”.

“Muite now had second thoughts and felt that Wangari might not be a good compromise candidate after all,” he writes, adding that to him, “it appeared that Central Kenya politics were at play again.”

Leakey also arranged a meeting with Ngilu and him in his office and left them for a couple of hours, insisting they agree between themselves who the candidate would be.

Raila was open to let Ngilu have it—if she agreed to run on the NDP ticket, but she declined.

“I told Charity I was willing to step down and back her for the presidency, on condition that she agreed to switch from the SDP and offer her candidacy under the NDP and that the two parties announce the formation of an alliance,” he writes.

“Charity refused to do this and my further plea that I needed a concession in order to sell the idea to my supporters fell on deaf ears.”

Getting Wamalwa and Kibaki to agree also failed.

Moi went on to win the election with 2.5 million votes, Kibaki got 1.9 million, Wamalwa got 505,704 votes, Ngilu got 488,600 while Raila was the third one with 667,886 votes.

But a day to Moi’s inauguration, the opposition flag bearers met and agreed that they would mobilise their supporters at 7am the following day and seek to disrupt the swearing-in ceremony at Uhuru Park.

They agreed to meet at the Norfolk Hotel and have their supporters meet at the GPO before leading the march to cause a disruption. Only Raila and his supporters turned up.