The writing is on the Orange wall

Recently a headline in one of the local dailies carried the phrase “The march is still on.” To a greater extent I agree that indeed the march is on and was on like more than three years ago. The Orange political brand has gone through a lot of phases and seasons in our times. The Orange has risen from a symbol of electoral referendum to an organization and a political vehicle.

Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party is the most popular party by poll ratings and has enjoyed the same for the last close to five years. What is paining me most is that a party so popular like ODM can fail to maximize on the opportunity every election period presents to seize the moment. All manner of words have been said about the party and I have a few things personally I noted as the undoing for this popular party.  

Positively the party over time has built a loyal membership nearly across the country. It is this loyalty from the grassroots support that has kept the party going in the midst of the many internal political challenges. After the victorious 2005 referendum win by the Orange camp, the movement was registered as a party where systems were established which guided them in their day to day running of the party. Offices and positions were created to serve and run the affairs of the party.  

With time what was seen as a solid and strong party slowly came to be like a tribal outfit. Preferential treatment was given for one to be nominated on the party ticket disregarding democracy at the grassroots level. Politics of party patronage came into play where what mattered was no longer competitive politics but whom you know and what you can bring in terms of material resources which simply put in other words as bribe. The party had a stagnated growth in other regions of the country due to selfishness portrayed by a few individuals from a certain region who felt it is their personal property. To be candid Raila Odinga was now being worshiped and it was either you were with him or for him or against him which the latter had painful political consequences that no one dared to go against him as a party leader. It is this myopic view of leadership where one person is everything of the party in reality but on paper we have different faces with hollow systems that killed the orange dream.

Due to the internal retrogressive politics, smart and bright brains who felt wasted, betrayed and cheated decided to quit the party and formed their own political parties or joined likeminded individuals and parties that could accommodate them. Losing the key politicians from various regions of the country was the red flag that the center of Orange party could not hold together anymore. Before the next general elections with the rising number of fallouts of the so called rebels I don’t think the party will survive another political season. Indecisiveness by the top party organ and even to accommodate views and opinions of other party members shall send the party to its deathbed very fast.

The picture we get is that of a divided house from the wrangling experienced and lack of internal democracy. In 2007 general elections, the ODM party had a team of promising next leadership of our nation referred as the pentagon. Whatever happened as to why the team did not hold together till the next general elections of March 2013, I really do not know the details but what is in public domain is that nearly all the team members abandoned the party for other political outfits where they felt democracy is exercised. My plea to the party leadership now is that they need to assess and evaluate their strategy pragmatically. Failure by the party to contain the current dissenting voices amicably and mutually before the next general elections shall bring the final nail on their coffin.