Amani National Congress party leader Musalia Mudavadi is closer to striking a political deal with Cord, a development that would see him play a bigger role in the outfit.
Suggestions of him being named the presidential candidate or at least a running mate have been rife this past week within the opposition.
His allies say they have had a series of talks with his former boss Raila Odinga, discussions that other Cord co-principals Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses Wetang’ula are said to be aware of.
What is however in contention is who among the three politicians will sacrifice their positions for Mr Mudavadi as his entry would completely change the equation in Cord, by and large the country’s politics too.
Curiously, even his style of messaging has been similar to that of Mr Odinga especially when bashing the Jubilee government. It could be purely coincidental though.
The move is part of what Mr Odinga described last week as a push to form a broad coalition with the hope of sending President Uhuru Kenyatta home after the elections slated for August 8 next year.
The Sunday Nation is told of panic in Jubilee arising out of this development that would send them back to the drawing board. Much of their 2017 strategy, we gather, is designed with Mr Odinga in mind as the opponent, the move would thus destabilise them.
If it materialises, his coming in could firmly lock in western voting bloc in the opposition, a region that is currently a hunting ground for both Cord and Jubilee.
In an interview with the Sunday Nation yesterday, Mr Mudavadi used glowing turn of phrase to describe his relationship with the three leading Cord politicians.
“Raila is an important political player and a friend. We may have had different opinions in the past but we are not enemies. We have been together with Weta (Wetang’ula) for long in politics, just the other day we had breakfast together.
It is the same case as Kalonzo whom we have a cordial working relationship with. We did quite some work in repairing the damaged image of the country in the global scene when I was Finance minister and he was the Foreign Affairs minister. Kenya was facing hard times with its international partners then,” he said.
On reports about possibility of ganging up with Cord against Jubilee in the next elections, he said: “We may have different opinion on issues, but we can also find a lot of common grounds on policy issues which would be for the benefit of the country. In our engagement with Raila and Cord, I would be happy to focus on what will be of common good to get the country move forward.”
