In Kenya, Raila Odinga, the opponent in permanent revolt

Does he show an unfailing combativeness or is he driven by the energy of despair? The stainless Raila Odinga, 78, its once again set in motion against the power in place, which he says he wants to dislodge. He hopes to drag in his wake cohorts of angry Kenyans.

He, the eternal opponent, who has systematically bowed during the five presidential elections in which he took part, wants to overturn the table. He made an appointment with opposition supporters on Monday, March 20, to “the mother of all steps” in the city center of the capital, Nairobi, to denounce the rising cost of living. A call for collective action banned by the authorities on Sunday, but which was followed by thousands of people on Monday.

In Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, protesters set fire to tires, clashes pitted the crowd against the police in other areas of the capital. Several protesters were arrested, including two opposition parliamentarians. A mobilization which, among some Kenyans, revives mixed memories, while the country has become accustomed to post-election unrest. Some, very violent, have left deep scars, including the 2007 riots that left at least 1,100 dead.

Wacky complaints

Until recently, the adventurer of Kenyan politics seemed out of breath. Despite weekly meetings, he gave the impression of preaching in a vacuum since the election of William Ruto during the presidential election of August 9, 2022, a head of state he judges “illegitimate”. However, the economic crisis taking hold in Kenya could allow “Baba” to breathe new life into its movement.

Raila Odinga sounded the tocsin on March 9, the day of the end of a strange ultimatum which he himself had issued to William Ruto and which the head of state took care to ignore. At the desk, sand-colored combat uniform on the shoulders, military rangers on the feet and a logo cap “Raila the Fifth” on the head (the fifth president), the opponent kicked off, not without the usual stammering, of his counter-attack against the one he calls the “dangerous dictator Ruto”.

“We are starting this movement of peaceful marches, boycotts, pickets, disobedience, general strike, petitions”, he assured, the culmination of this mobilization to be the big demonstration of March 20. Under the cries of “Ruto must go!” » chanted by the hundred of his supporters, the mzee (old sage) lists a jumble of grievances, some outlandish, some dangerous.

He denounces, pell-mell, the increase in the cost of living, a supposed plundering of Kenya’s resources, electoral irregularities or the import of GMO maize. Ready to do anything to mobilize, Raila Odinga sometimes ventures onto more slippery ground, that of ethnicity. He accuses President Ruto of favoring his community, the Kalenjin. “This illegitimate regime plants the seeds of ethnic hegemony for future genocide in Kenya”outrageously declared the man who repeatedly came close to incitement to ethnic hatred during his long political career.

” Enough is enough “

These declarations, coupled with a purchasing power at half mast, will they give rise to a broad movement of protest over time? Nairobi, in any case, is preparing for it. On Monday, the city center of the capital was partially blocked, businesses completely closed. Access to the State House (presidential palace) was reinforced. After six months of a rather calm presidency, this is the first life-size test for William Ruto. ” Enough is enough, launched, visibly annoyed, the president to his opponent. You cannot continue to hold the country hostage! »

“It is too early to say whether this action will be a success, says Kenyan political analyst Mutahi Ngunyi. Not sure that there is enough popular discontent for it to succeed. » Raila Odinga’s movement lacks support among the population despite some recent demonstrations in his stronghold of Kisumu. Improvising a speech during the demonstration, the opposition leader promised rallies every Monday. “But the fact that he is again and again asking for the cancellation of the elections six months after the validation of the ballot by the Supreme Court clearly shows the difficulties that Raila Odinga has in mobilizing”, concludes the observer.

Margaret Nganyi, 68, was walking in Nairobi on Monday. “First to demand the cancellation of fraudulent elections, then to oppose the decline in our purchasing power”, says this long-time opponent, wrapped in a Maasai-style blanket. Until recently, Margaret considered herself middle class. Now she is unable to pay her granddaughter’s school fees. In Kenya, a third of the population lives in extreme poverty.

Like a government short of foreign currency and in desperate search of external financing, Kenyans are bearing the full brunt of inflation, symbolized by the end of public subsidy programs for gasoline and maize flour. decided by the Ruto administration, and more broadly by the rise in oil and fertilizer prices. In February, the rating agency Standard & Poor’s lowered to “negative” Kenya’s sovereign debt outlook.

pale copy

In the background, another economic battle occupies the minds of the three strong men of Kenya. For several weeks, President William Ruto has appeared to be attacking the financial empires of Raila Odinga and his ally, former President Uhuru Kenyatta, two of the country’s greatest fortunes. The government’s recent decisions to open up the liquefied petroleum gas market to competition, in which Raila Odinga’s company has a monopoly, and to ban the import of certain dairy products, in which Uhuru Kenyatta dominates the sector, are perceived as so many casus belli.

“For Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, this big protest is also about proving to the presidential camp that they can mobilize troops and solicit the media to protect their financial empires”, assures Mutahi Ngunyi. At the risk of tipping Kenya once again into a deep political crisis?

To show his muscles, Raila Odinga has also unveiled a new kind of troop: the Movement for the Defense of Democracy (MDD), nicknamed Jeshi la Baba (“Baba’s army”). Recognizable by its military fatigues and red berets slightly tilted on the head, the MDD, supposed to be a youth movement, looks like a pale copy of the revolutionary parties of Bobi Wine in Uganda and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa. For the moment harmless, the MDD all the same proclaims at will “remove Ruto from the State House”.