Raila Odinga the Lord of Democracy and politics

There have been all kinds of theories put forward to try and explain how Raila Odinga can so often have lost in presidential elections (1997, 2007 and 2013) and yet remain such a potent force on the national political stage.

One way to explain this is to consider the narratives he used to draw so many voters to his side. For in virtually every presidential election in which he was a candidate, Raila faced an enormous superiority in funds and resources in the opposing camp.

In 1997, Raila was one of the first-time candidates to try to create a strong regional vote bloc by vying for President. Among the others were Charity Ngilu (Ukambani) and Kijana Wamalwa (Western Kenya).

At that time, the dominant narrative was that each “big tribe” needed to have "our own party" and defeating President Daniel Moi at the ballot box was almost a secondary consideration.

And here we note that whereas Charity Ngilu has long lost the affection of the Ukambani masses, Raila still holds the Luo vote in the palm of his hand.

In 2007, Raila - having supported Mwai Kibaki in 2002 – now had a new narrative, and one that appealed to many voters well beyond his Luo-Nyanza stronghold.

This was that Kibaki's Central Kenya backyard had “eaten alone” in violation of what had been agreed on when virtually the whole nation had lined up behind the Kibaki candidacy to give Kenya's third President his historic landslide.

This narrative was to underwrite the “41-against-1” formula which was certainly very effective as a vote getter, but tragically also led to the post-election violence of 2008. It took the setting up of the grand coalition government to end the violence.

In the process, Raila rose to the newly created post of Prime Minister.

But he was by then more than just the PM. Many of his supporters considered him to be the president-in-waiting, and the man whose votes were stolen in broad daylight by the Central Kenya oligarchy.

Going into the 2013 general election, Raila initially had a huge lead in the polls. But this time, the more effective narrative actually came from the rival team when Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto argued that it was Raila who had “arranged with foreigners to take us to the ICC” to clear his path to the presidency.

This proved to be a potent enough narrative to deny Raila victory in that election.