Why is Kalonzo politically unstable?

If there is a politician in Kenya who changes statements in a very short time, there is none other than veteran politician Kalonzo Musyoka. Since Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition party picked Martha Karua as Raila Odinga’s running mate, Kalonzo lost his bearing, making different statements that even he himself cannot repeat or remember.

 Kalonzo joined Odinga’s coalition rather late when other prominent politicians like Charity Njiru and Peter Kenneth were already in.  Despite his late coming, Kalonzo wanted to be automatically named Odinga’s running mate. Kalonzo blinded himself of the basic rule of nominating a running mate being mainly tagged to the number of votes he or she can fetch. Odinga settled for Karua because of the vote rich Mount Kenya region, with close to six million votes, compared to 1.5 million votes from Kalonzo’s Ukambani region.

Although Kalonzo threatened to walk out of the coalition, saying “we have agreed to walk our separate ways,” his bid to register as a presidential candidate hit a dead wall. He did not present the list of his supporters in the required Microsoft Excel sheet.

He is among the four political party candidates and nine independents who failed to satisfy the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s strict demands of 48,000 supporters, at least 24 counties, proper presentation of supporters’ names and copies of their national identity cards.

He now has limited options as he can also not legally exit Azimio. He is walking a tightrope as there are indications that he plans to rejoin Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition Party, after refusing the chief minister post that Odinga had offered him.

Before the revelation of his being locked out of the race by the IEBC, Kalonzo’s supporters and Wiper aspirants were piling pressure on him to return to Azimio and back Odinga and Karua as the flag bearers. Political analysts though, question whether by re-joining Azimio, Kalonzo realizes that he has been missing out in the mass campaigns around the country and, therefore, just wants to reap from where he has not sown.

Kalonzo’s behavior did not surprise Kenyans who know the man as a political opportunist.   After the 2007 violent presidential election crisis, Kalonzo who had obtained 9% of the votes, trailing in third place after Mwai Kibaki and Odinga, accepted to be appointed Vice-President and Minister of home affairs, even before the crisis was settled.  He simply minded his own take away, and said that he was, "intensely aware that the appointment has come at a difficult time when our nation is going through a painful moment."

 Kalonzo used the phrase “kupita Katikati” meaning passing in between, when many had ruled him out of the race that was visibly between Kibaki and Odinga. Out of the stalemate, and political uncertainty, he reaped big earning the post of Vice-President. 

In 2010 Kalonzo supported the draft constitution in the campaign for the referendum but members of the campaign team opposing the draft constitution claimed that he was secretly opposing the draft leading to his satirical comparison to a watermelon which is naturally green outside and red inside. 

The team supporting the draft constitution was represented by color green while the team opposing the draft constitution was represented by the color red hence the "green team" and the "red team."  His watermelon nickname was because of his alleged open support for the green team, and secret support for the red team.

Kalonzo either lacks a deep pocket to run a presidential campaign and therefore, prefers to ride on the back of deep pocketed politicians, or he is a miser who fears to risk spending huge sums of money with no guarantee that he will get what he wants, according to analysts. This makes him unstable by always playing the schemer who waits to join the side that he has already seen as having the highest chances of winning. 

Despite Kalonzo’s political weaknesses and the possibility of causing controversies for Odinga, among other coalition supporters, Odinga risked a possible fall out with politicians in Azimio such as Kenneth. The latter has been loyal all along and was not promised any ministerial portfolio. Although Odinga went an extra mile to accommodate late comer Kalonzo to his camp, he should as well be aware that Kalonzo is not an easily trustable team player, despite promising him to be in charge of the cabinet, should Azimio win.