Raila Odinga

Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi in his new book has revealed that there was immense pressure from their supporters after 2007 polls for a parallel swearing in.

Mudavadi was Raila Odinga’s running mate by then.

“We were told that a judge of the High Court and a section of the military were willing and ready to come to Uhuru Park to swear in Raila Odinga as president. I never got to know the name of this judge or who in the military had been contacted,” Mudavadi reveals in Soaring Above the Storms of Passion.

Mudavadi further divulges that he was among those opposed to the swearing in because Kenya would have erupted in civil war.

“I brought in some prominent lawyers to persuade the radicals in ODM that this would be the wrong way to go. We were perched on a precipice. We were now on the verge of sinking the country into a civil bloodbath,” Mudavadi reveals.

Amidst demonstrations and violence across the country, then President Mwai Kibaki had been sworn in for a second term  by Chief Justice Evans Gicheru at State House Nairobi  in a hurriedly prepared ceremony at night.

This escalated the post-poll violence that eventually culminated in deaths of more than 1,300 people while hundreds of thousands others were internally displaced. 

The 417-page autobiography also lays bare tussles that characterised the transmission of election results at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre.

Mudavadi further discloses that he and Raila were shocked at the turn of events at KICC as suspicious results began trickling in especially from the Mt Kenya region.

“Our candidate and I watched everything from Pentagon House. William Ruto, Andrew Ligale, Henry Kosgey and Caroli Omondi were our main people at the KICC. We watched them engage Kivuitu as things degenerated very steadily,” the ANC supremo recounts.

As Mudavadi and Raila arrived at KICC, they encountered heavy police presence as then ruling Party of National Unity (PNU) representatives piled pressure on Electoral Commission of Kenya chairperson Samuel Kivuitu to announce the results.

“On the third day, we went up to the ECK offices at the KICC and found the commissioners ready to make the announcement in favour of Mwai Kibaki. There was high tension. Martha Karua of PNU was almost belligerently urging them to announce,” Mudavadi says.

As ODM, Mudavadi points out that the turn of events was not surprising considering the intrigues that had surrounded the pre-election period.

“There had been signs all along, especially in the last few days to the election. There had been talk of security people who were masquerading as PNU agents in many parts of the country,” Mudavadi writes.