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How the West was Won: Regional Politics and Prophetic Promises in the
2007 Kenya Elections
Julie MacArthura
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Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge,

To cite this Article MacArthur, Julie(2008) 'How the West was Won: Regional Politics and Prophetic Promises in the 2007
Kenya Elections', Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2: 2, 227 — 241
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 Journal of Eastern African Studies
Vol. 2, No. 2, 227
241, July 2008

How the West was Won: Regional Politics

and Prophetic Promises in the 2007 Kenya
Elections
JULIE MACARTHUR
Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

ABSTRACT In the 2007 Kenya elections, the violent clashes and allegations of electoral fraud that
engulfed the country served to overshadow, and thus mask, the underlying causes of the opposition and
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disillusionment that had produced such a closely contested presidential election. The success of the
Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) in challenging the incumbent government, despite the outcome,
rested in its ability to mobilise support across regional and ethnic lines throughout the country. This
paper demonstrates how ODM mobilised coalition strategies, regional arguments and historical
justifications to court a particular regional vote, the Luyia of the Western Province. As the second largest
ethnic group in Kenya, the Luyia have, in every election since independence, represented a crucial
battleground in the hunt for votes, as a large yet unwieldy and unpredictable voting bloc. However, the
opposition’s strength, and indeed the post-election chaos, cannot be explained simply by reference to
political tribalism or inter-ethnic conflict alone. Rather, this case study reveals the ways in which ODM
used promises of succession, power-sharing and regional devolution of authority and resources to create
a broad-based, multi-ethnic coalition.

The post-election violence and questions of democratic legitimacy in the 2007 Kenya
elections have prompted many to ask what happened and why this African bastion of
stability and burgeoning democracy had so unexpectedly gone up in flames. Post-election
allegations of rigging focused on the disputed outcome of the presidential elections
between incumbent Mwai Kibaki, of the Party of National Unity (PNU), and opposition
leader Raila Odinga, of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). Although the
presidential race was a tight battle, the parliamentary results made a stronger statement:
almost 70 per cent of incumbent ministers lost their seats, and ODM won a
parliamentary majority. Thus, regional campaign stories are of vital importance to
understanding not only the violence and disillusionment at the outcome of the elections,
but also, and perhaps more importantly, how ODM managed to create a broad-based
coalition capable of inspiring such a clear call for change in parliament.
Directly after announcing their prospective candidacies in September 2007, Odinga
and Kibaki both launched their presidential campaigns in the Western Province to court
the Luyia vote. As the second largest ethnic bloc in Kenya, with over 14 per cent of the
population, the Luyia have historically represented an important swing vote in the

Correspondence Address: Julie MacArthur, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2
1TJ, UK. Email: jem68@cam.ac.uk

ISSN 1753-1055 Print/1753-1063 Online/08/020227
15 # 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/17531050802058344
 228 J. MacArthur

country, yet are also said to be the ‘most fragmented politically and socially of Kenya’s
major communities’.1 Thus courting this substantial, yet unpredictable voting bloc was a
vital concern of all major parties and yet could not rely on purely ethnic overtones to
determine political allegiances.
Despite media and indeed politicians’ statements to the contrary, this election was not
solely another exercise in political tribalism, inflaming age-old tribal hatreds and pitting
ethnic neighbours against each other. Although ethnicity should neither be downplayed
nor denied as an important mobilising force in electoral campaigns, ODM’s strategy
relied more on the regional issues of resource distribution and equitable development,
and the national concerns of constitutional crisis and power-sharing in its appeal to
multi-ethnic support. Thus, how the opposition used its coalition strategy and historical
arguments to court the Western Province voting bloc provides a platform for
understanding the deeper historical, political and social issues at stake in this election.
For the 2007 election campaign, three major trends were crucial to ODM’s strategy
and to securing the Luyia vote. First, ODM positioned itself from the outset as a plural
and populist political party. However, all parties had to contend with the tension and
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interplay between ethnic politics and party politics that have marked politics in the
Western Province since decolonisation. Second, ODM’s invocation of ‘majimboism’,
the will for a federal state, tapped into deep historical demands for devolution of power in
the Western Province and indeed revealed ODM’s calls for a renegotiation of regional
power distribution within the nation. Finally, ODM mobilised historical justifications
and future promises of power-sharing to garner support from different regions. In the
Western Province, the opposition revealed its dual strategic aims through its invocation of
the late Elijah Masinde’s prophecy. Elijah Masinde, the anti-colonial rebel and religious
visionary from the northernmost Luyia group of the Bukusu, is said to have prophesised
‘Bubwami bukhamile khunyanja (The leadership will come from the lake).’2 Although
many versions exist, the central message of the prophecy remains that a Luo president was
the necessary precondition for the ascendancy of Luyia leadership in the country. The
importance of the prophecy was twofold. First, it revealed the ways in ODM mobilised
historical arguments to justify present political choices. Second, it revealed one of the
consistent conflicts in Kenyan politics: the crisis of succession. The campaign story in
Western Province, as revealed through party politics, promises of federalism and the
Masinde prophecy, was really the story of how ODM mobilised its regional campaign
strategies to win the majority of this unwieldy voting bloc.

Regional Party Politics and the Birth of the Opposition

The so-called ‘Orange’ movement grew out of popular discontent over President Kibaki’s
proposed constitutional reforms in 2005. Kibaki’s proposed constitution did little to
address the public demands to reform ‘Kenya’s ‘‘top heavy’’ political system’, or to limit
executive power.3 The Orange movement’s rallying call was for a ‘people power’
revolution to combat the dominance of Kibaki’s Mount Kenya mafia in the government.
The movement thus attempted to capitalise on a culture of low politics and local action
that developed during the referendum campaign in response to an overbearing, elitist
state. Constitution-drafting became a common pastime throughout the country and the
referendum activated local and regionally based opposition to Kibaki’s government more
generally. The Orange movement originally embraced many different factions that had
 How the West was Won 229

become frustrated and impatient with Kibaki’s resistance to curbing executive power and
more equitably distributing political positions; the movement initially included several
MPs in Kibaki’s government, such as Raila Odinga, official opposition leader Uhuru
Kenyatta, and former President Moi. With the victory of the ‘No’ vote in the 2005
referendum, these political leaders transformed the Orange movement into the ODM
political party. ODM then faced the challenge of cohering the very disparate group,
representing 58 per cent of the country, who had voted Orange and opposed the new
constitution. Voting distribution in this referendum revealed the regional and cross-
ethnic support for the Orange vote that ODM would attempt to harness.4 Founded out of
this momentum, ODM’s party platform necessarily called for dramatic political and
institutional change. However, internal party politics dominated the first two years of its
existence. Personality clashes and battles over leadership caused some, like KANU, to
splinter; Kenyatta took KANU out of partnership with ODM while William Ruto, former
secretary-general of KANU, remained loyal to the new party. In 2007, after months of
party in-fighting over leadership, ODM announced that Raila Odinga would stand as
ODM’s presidential candidate.
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Simultaneously with Odinga’s promotion to lead the party, ODM attempted to answer
the challenge of uniting its disparate supporters. ODM would not be led solely by Odinga
but rather by a ‘Pentagon’ of five leaders, each representing a different region and diverse
ethnic origins from around the country. The Pentagon consisted of Raila Odinga, the de
facto Luo leader since his father’s death, Musalia Mudavadi of the Western Province,
William Ruto representing the Rift Valley, Najib Balala for the Coast and Joseph Nyagah
from the Eastern Province. Both Odinga and Nyagah were, however, MPs for Nairobi
constituencies. At the ceremony announcing his presidential candidacy, Odinga led the
party in a symbolic act of unity, cutting and then distributing pieces of a three-tiered
orange cake to his fellow Pentagon members.5 At the heart of ODM’s Pentagon strategy
was this metaphoric ‘sharing of the cake’, a populist party to be based on power-sharing
between different ethnic groups and regions within the country. This sort of symbolism
dominated ODM’s rhetoric. In the words of Mudavadi, ‘the ODM power sharing . . . was
an equivalent of the Pentagon and Raila sat as first among equals as well as the
commander in-charge’; the Pentagon members were to be Odinga’s ‘generals’ in the field,
rallying support for him and for the party throughout their regional bases.6 Extending
this populist rhetoric even further, the constituents would then be the ‘foot soldiers’ in
this movement, building on this culture of low politics and local mobilisation for change.
In late October, ODM rewarded the surprise defection of popular Health Minister and
Chairperson of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), Charity Ngilu from PNU to
ODM with a promotion to the Pentagon. Although Ngilu would buttress Nyagah’s
campaign in the Eastern Province, where support for ODM was limited, her addition to
the elite group aimed more to answer critics of the gender imbalance in government. The
Pentagon, as its name would remain despite its now hexagonal membership, thus further
broadened its coalition while still remaining an essentially regional strategy.
From the inauguration of multi-party politics in Kenya in 1992, the need for regional
strategies was written into constitutional provisions for presidential elections. In an
attempt to reinforce Moi’s position going into the 1992 elections, Parliament passed a bill
that would require any presidential candidate to receive a minimum of 25 per cent of the
vote in at least five of the eight provinces in order to take office. In 1992, this provision
aimed to slow the opposition movements by ensuring they would need more than just a
 230 J. MacArthur

majority of the popular vote, and hence would not be able to merely rely on the large
ethnic percentages of Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu or Oginga Odinga’s Luo. This provision
would indeed prove to be a fatal factor in the ultimate loss of the opposition movements
in 1992.7 However, the provision remains, and thus makes it essential for candidates to
approach campaigning regionally and address the needs of provincial interests. Ironically,
this provision favoured the opposition by the 2007 elections. ODM’s Pentagon uniquely
positioned itself as overtly representing at least five of the eight provincial voting blocs.
Throughout the campaign, polls indicated that Odinga had succeeded in reaching well
above the 25 per cent requirement in at least six of the eight provinces, falling below that
mark only in the Central and Eastern provinces. However, polls taken directly before the
elections showed Kibaki barely predicted above 25 per cent of the vote in several
provinces. Even with Kibaki gaining in the polls directly before the election, Mudavadi
remained optimistic, claiming that ‘even with that small margin, ODM will lock out
Kibaki from acquiring the mandatory 25 per cent in five provinces as required by the
constitution’.8 As Mudavadi suggested, ODM mobilised its regional strategies not only to
gain as much of the popular vote as possible, but also to lessen Kibaki’s chances of
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fulfilling this provision. Thus, potential rigging was not solely a matter of the total
number of votes registered, but also crucially about the distribution of these votes on a
regional basis.
However, it would be careless, and indeed in many cases mistaken, to assume that all of
the eight provinces were either ethnically homogeneous or necessarily voted as a unit.
Travelling around the Western Province, a widely invoked refrain refers to the Luyia as
being the most ‘democratic’ and ‘liberal’ group in Kenya. A particular ethnic history
informs this democratic belief. The Luyia did not exist as an ethnic group before the mid-
1930s. Pre-colonially, and well into the colonial era, they were, instead, seventeen separate
and distinct Bantu tribal groupings.9 Early colonial officials attempted to assert
administrative control over the ‘turbulent collection of tribes, collectively known to the
coast people as the Kavirondo’, by creating the district of North Kavirondo to contain all
of the Bantu tribes of Western Kenya.10 The gold rush of the 1930s in North Kavirondo
provided the local crisis in land tenure and political protest necessary for particular local
actors to begin advocating for an enlarged ethnic and territorial identity.11 The North
Kavirondo Central Association (NKCA) formed in 1932 with the explicit aim of fostering
a Luyia ethnic identity, so named in their 1935 pamphlet entitled ‘Avaluyha
A Kinship’
and in numerous subsequent petitions.12 However, internal divisions and contradictions
plagued the NKCA’s project and gave rise to vigorous local debates over land tenure, the
territorial extent of ethnic identities, cultural authority, and language policies. Although
linguistic commonalities remain central to the claimed coherence of a larger Luyia
identity, efforts to consolidate one Luyia language largely failed in the colonial period.13
Despite the concerted attempt to cultivate a unified Luyia ethnic identity in the late
colonial period, local and national moments of crisis intervened and challenged ethnic
homogenisation.14 However, a Luyia ethnic identity did take root in this period and,
despite internal and external pressures, allowed for a sort of ethnic pluralism to develop.
Unlike the Luo and the Kikuyu, and even to an extent the Kalenjin in more recent years,
the Luyia do not vote as a bloc and do not automatically rally behind Luyia candidates.
Thus, courting this significant regional vote required an understanding of the
complicated relationship between ethnic politics and party politics in the Western
Province.
 How the West was Won 231

Since independence, and increasingly since the introduction of multi-party politics in

1992, party affiliations have dominated political allegiances in Western Province, at times
above ethnic affiliations. The ethnic pluralism depicted above was mirrored in and
informed a political pluralism that renders this province a particularly difficult vote to
secure. Many would date this back to the battle between the Kenya African National
Union (KANU) and the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) at independence,
waged largely in ethnic terms. However, the Luyia position in this battle has often been
greatly over-simplified. In the dominant narrative, KANU was the super-alliance of the
Kikuyu and the Luo, while KADU was the coalition of the smaller pastoral ethnic groups,
fearing domination by the larger groups. The Luyia have been depicted as solely a KADU
stronghold, with Masinde Muliro taking the lead, being named Vice President of the
party in 1960. However, the picture on the ground was much more complicated, both
parties gaining strong support and dividing local opinion in North Kavirondo, by this
time renamed and divided into North Nyanza and Elgon Nyanza.
In 1960 at a meeting of the Provincial Security Committee, while Elgon Nyanza, South
Nyanza and Central Nyanza were easily ascribed to a particular party and thus deemed
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‘unlikely to be dangerous’, North Nyanza was said to be ‘potentially dangerous’ due to its
large number of voters and the presence of multiple political parties.15 While most
District associations in the Nyanza Province merged as local branches into either KADU
or KANU, in North Nyanza ‘the Baluyia people retained their independence of outlook’
and represented ‘very much a mixture’ of political parties.16 In the 1961 election, KADU
won easily in Elgon Nyanza, although only in very close calls in North Nyanza. Throup
and Hornsby noted a similar trend in 1992: ‘In 1963, as in 1992, the Luhya split three
ways, some voting with the Kalenjin, some with the Kikuyu, others remaining
independent.’17 Thus, political tribalism, in its ability to subsume the debates of moral
ethnicity to create homogenised ethnic bargaining positions and thus maximise access to
material accumulation and control of state power, never consolidated in this period.18
This almost defiant history of political pluralism in the Western Province defied simple
ethnic appellations to unity. These diverse party loyalties continue to exert enormous
influence in the region, despite many coming together in 2002 to oust President Moi. In
the 2007 election, as in 2002, what united a majority of Luyia voters was not necessarily
calls to ethnic solidarity, but rather a deep desire to challenge the current political system.

Majimboism: Federalism or Devolution?

Calls for constitutional change in post-colonial Kenya often invoked the legacy of
‘majimboism’, KADU’s proposal for a federal state at independence as a viable solution to
the problems of multi-ethnic governance and resource distribution. Although majimbo’s
origins have been attacked, in the 1960s and today, as being the brain-child of the settlers
to create their own ‘white islands’, majimbo appealed to KADU constituents in the 1960s
that feared domination by the Kikuyu and Luo groups.19 It was also used by some, in the
words of Nottingham and Sanger soon after the election, ‘as a bargaining counter,
expecting simply to achieve strengthened powers for local government over land and
education’.20 The historical merits and complicated ways in which majimbo was first
imagined and proposed remain hotly contested issues. However, crucial for the 2007
elections was how the idea of majimboism came to dominate debate and difference
between ODM and PNU. Ideology and political platforms are not what divide Kenyan
 232 J. MacArthur

political parties; personalities and coalitions of patrimony continue to dominate party

politics. However, at the end of September, Odinga announced that ‘we in ODM will
provide the legislation that will allow majimbo system in order to equitably distribute
resources in the country’.21 This came to mark the major policy difference between ODM
and PNU and dominated media debate between the two parties throughout the
campaign.
The election in 2007, as in 1963 and in 1992, centred on issues of majimboism, land
distribution, resource control and liberation from forces seen as dominating the country.
B. A. Ogot has written that unlike the calls for majimboism in 1963, based on fear of
domination by larger ethnic blocs, the 1992 re-emergence of the regionalism option came
‘from all groups, large and small . . . on the basis of ‘equitable development’.’ 22 However,
the calls for majimboism in 1992 sparked violence around the borders of the Kalenjin in
the Rift Valley. The so-called Kalenjin ‘warriors’ began attacking Kikuyu, Luyia, Luo and
Gusii residents surrounding them in an attempt to create a ‘pastoralist-only zone loyal to
KANU and President Moi’.23 This violence in 1992 fulfilled exactly the charges levelled
against majimboism then as now: that it would entrench ethnically defined regions and
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thus lead to ethnic violence to drive out outsiders. The post-election violence that ravaged
the country after the disputed outcome of the 2007 elections, most heavily felt in the Rift
Valley and Western Kenya, again raised such accusations of ethnic violence motivated by a
drive for regional homogeneity.
However, in ODM’s rhetoric, majimboism focused not on buttressing political
tribalism through ethnically defined regional units, but rather on the devolution of
political authority, and crucially of resources, to a more local level. In Western Province,
people most often affirmed that majimboism in reality meant roads, a politically charged
issue in Kenya.24 ODM stressed the improvement of roads as central to its political and
economic mandates, particularly in areas where the vote may have split, such as in the
Western, Coast and Kisii regions.25 Resource distribution and the ability to control
provincial funds and development, as well as accountability, were at the centre of Western
Province’s support of majimboism. Even those opposed to ODM and majimboism in
Western Province still called for the Constituency Development Funds (CDFs) to be
strengthened and given more funds and more control, a weaker form of devolution.26
Thus calls were coming from many sectors for some form of devolution of power and a
decentralising of resources. ODM used the historical legacy of majimboism to lure
supporters from groups who historically supported devolution, such as the Western
Province and the Coast, and those who had only more recently decided that it may
counter what was felt to be a history of state control and resource hoarding by the Central
Province, such as those in Nyanza.
Closer to the elections, however, ODM distanced itself from the hardline of
majimboism in favour of vaguer statements of devolution. In this, ODM’s regional
strategy was still the dominant force in its campaign; with Kibaki closing in according to
the polls in late December, ODM released its regional manifestos. Each manifesto was
‘tailor-made for the regions’, spelling out how the party, if elected, would transform
provincial entities into ‘self-sustaining units’.27 These regional manifestos were meant to
distance ODM from majimbo; in fact, in its general manifesto, ODM called upon the
constituents of each province as the only legitimate sources to demand and define
devolution.28 ODM was attempting to distance itself from the top
down process of state-
led majimbo in favour of calling upon low political interests to define what devolution
 How the West was Won 233

should entail, in an evermore regionally distinctive manner. ODM’s detractors regarded

these regional manifestos as revealing the party’s essentially divisive strategy, entrenching
regional interests above national integration. However, for proponents of ODM, these
regional manifestos represented a unique answer to regional inequalities and uneven
development. Pentagon leaders, with regional manifestos in hand, sought to portray
ODM as a populist movement, having deep local knowledge of the distinct historical,
environment and development issues of different areas around the country. This strategy
emphasised the disparities in wealth and development not on a purely ethnic level, but
rather on a regional level, focusing on the rural to urban divide, environmental diversity
and the growing class struggle that affected all Kenyans. Odinga specifically challenged
Kibaki’s claimed economic advancements by exposing his policy of ‘trickle-down
economics without the trickle’.29 Much of ODM’s support would come from disaffected
youth, disillusioned by unfulfilled promises of employment by the Kibaki government.
Calls for devolution and these regional platforms allowed ODM to tailor its campaign
promises to differentiated needs across the country.
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Historical Prophecies and the Crisis of Succession

ODM’s regional promises relied heavily on historical justifications for the equitable
distribution of resources and power. For some, like the Maasai, this would mean the
righting of historic injustices dating back to the colonial period. For others, such as
the North Rift, it would mean the righting of more recent neglect by previous
governments. And for the Western Province, it would mean the fulfilment of historic
destinies; as the District Commissioner in 1943 likewise predicted, ODM used prophetic
calls to future Luyia leadership to argue that, if united, the Luyia would take their ‘rightful
place as the leading tribe of Kenya’.30 However, the strategic value of Elijah Masinde
prophecy’s was not confined to the Western Province, but rather also reinforced ODM’s
political mandate of power-sharing.
The importance of Masinde’s prophecy in the opposition’s strategy was evident in
ODM’s constant invocation of the prophecy and the heated media publicity and debate
over the prophecy. On a weekly basis starting in September 2007, the press reported on the
Masinde prophecy, its meanings, its adherent and its political consequences. Directly
following Odinga’s nomination to head the party, he named a Luyia, Musalia Mudavadi, as
his running mate. This decision immediately sparked discussion about the Masinde
prophecy, often claimed to have been originally told to Raila’s father, Oginga Odinga. As the
prophecy foretells, Luo leadership was necessary to cleanse the seat of power before a Luyia
president could take the seat. In 1992 the prophecy was also invoked by Oginga Odinga’s
Forum for the Restoration of Democracy
Kenya (FORD-Kenya) opposition movement
and succeeded in garnering the Bukusu vote, though crucially not the Luyia vote as a whole.
Elijah Masinde was the leader of an anti-colonial religious movement called Dini ya
Msambwa in Western Kenya that began in the 1940s and continued to agitate for religious
renewal and political reform well into the post-colonial era. Dini ya Msambwa began
among Masinde’s Bukusu, the northernmost Luyia sub-group at the foothills of Mount
Elgon. Masinde called for a return to traditional religious practices and in 1943 began an
anti-colonial campaign targeting symbols of colonial coercion, particularly agricultural
officers forcing the uprooting of particular plants, labour officers conscribing forced
communal labour, and by committing arson against white settler farms and mission
 234 J. MacArthur

stations.31 Although jailed several times, sent to Mathari Mental Hospital for two years,
and eventually deported in 1948, Masinde remained a powerful symbol among his
followers. At independence, Masinde continued to agitate against government policies
and Kenyatta again banned the movement in 1968 and imprisoned Masinde the following
year. Masinde had become ‘an embarrassing reminder of the past . . . some are
undoubtedly asking themselves whether in practice the British were all that bad, and
government by Africans, or to be more specific, government by a Kikuyu elite, all that
good’.32 In this context, it is not all that surprising that Masinde’s memory and prophetic
legacy would be invoked to overthrow what ODM pictured as Kikuyu dominance in the
government.
The interplay between religious movements and anti-colonial or political protest has a
long and heavily debated history in Western Kenya.33 Audrey Wipper and Jan de Wolf
fought out the connections between millenarianism and militant political action
regarding Dini ya Msambwa in the pages of the Canadian Journal of African Studies.34
However, despites these debates, willingly or otherwise, prophets often played key
political roles in pre-colonial and colonial times, and the usefulness of prophetic messages
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to oppositional movements continues in the current political discourse in Kenya.35

Several events secured Elijah Masinde’s reputation as a prophet. He prophesised when
deported to Lamu that he would not remain there long, confirmed when the colonial
administration moved him to Marsebet soon after his arrival.36 He predicted the white
men would leave Kenya, and they did.37 And he predicted that Kenyatta would lead the
country at independence, supporting KANU despite the strong Bukusu support for
KADU.38 However, more interestingly Masinde’s prophecies can be understood as simply
politically astute, in this case, seeing that political leadership may follow ethnic
percentages: first Kikuyu (with Masinde’s prophecy of Kenyatta’s leadership), then Luo
(who during his time were the second largest group) and then the Luyia. As a political
commentator Wafula Buke wrote, ‘the God who gave Masinde the prophecy of a Luyia
winning the presidency after a Luo understood the electoral dynamics of post
independence Kenya’.39
As use of the prophecy suggests, a crisis of succession has haunted the post-colonial
Kenyan political system. The strategic use of the Masinde prophecy by the opposition was
not solely for the historical and emotional weight it carried; rather, it was also a future
promise, an implicit pledge of succession. Raila Odinga’s strategic choice of Mudavadi as
his running mate was not just a realisation of a Luo
Luyia political alliance but also an
implicit promise for a future Luyia president. Another dimension to this seeming ethnic
alliance between the second and third largest groups in Kenya was the realisation of a
regional alliance in Western Kenya, rumoured for the past few years and serving to
counter-balance the strength, numbers and influence of Central Kenya.40 As succession
has always been a potentially explosive issue, this promise of succession also promised
future stability and an overt mandate for political power to be distributed among
different groups within the country.
Presidential succession and power-sharing became an even more crucial campaign
concern with certain early developments in the PNU campaign. Kibaki’s cooptation of the
still official opposition in the government, KANU and its Chairman, Uhuru Kenyatta,
into the folds of PNU raised warning alarms among detractors. Despite Moi and Kenyatta
having been instrumental in the Orange movement during the 2005 referendum, both
lost much of their influence within ODM’s new structure and turned to Kibaki to regain
 How the West was Won 235

relevance in the new political scene. As PNU and Kibaki were under the same pressure to
gain a plurality of regional votes due to the 25 per cent provision, they too had to devise
strategies to lure diverse regional voters. Kibaki’s political mandate focused on his past
achievements and the continuation of his current policies and programs. However, PNU
was a recent creation, a party formed solely as the vehicle for Kibaki’s re-election bid, and
thus lacked popular support. PNU initially comprised a coalition of parties with distinctly
regional identities, hoping to maintain their regional influence and build off the
party loyalties discussed earlier. However, these parties did not penetrate two centrally
important regions, the Rift Valley Province and the North Eastern Province. The
integration of KANU under the pro-Kibaki umbrella, it was hoped, would aid the party
in reaching out to these regional constituents. Moi’s official endorsement of Kibaki’s re-
election campaign further aided PNU in luring Moi’s former chosen successor, Kenyatta
into the government party. This unusual absorption of the official opposition into the
ruling government’s party shocked the nation, yet came in a long series of switching
alliances and party defections for both parties.
However, many believed that to secure this move Kibaki had promised succession to
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Uhuru Kenyatta, thus ensuring Kikuyu dominance in State House for a further decade at
least. Reports connected the presidential succession question with political leadership in
the Central Province
‘the Kibaki succession plot is in two tiers, foundation being taking
over his command of Central Kenya, and secondly, using it as the springboard for
national supremacy in 2012’.41 The undercurrent of generational conflict present
throughout the campaign came to a head in this controversy. ODM accused PNU not
only of a succession pact, but also of a larger conspiracy, headed by Moi, to maintain the
dominance of the Kenyatta and Moi families in a dynastic power scheme, with the sons of
the first two presidents poised for succession in 2012. In this ironic twist, Odinga claimed
‘now, Moi has made both Kenyatta and Kibaki his succession project’.42 Fear that the
Mount Kenya mafia was thus combining with Moi, and his particular Kalenjin backers,
reinforced ODM’s tactical use of regional strategies. By touting the Masinde prophecy,
ODM was also promising not to fall victim to ethnic chauvinism, as epitomised in their
representations of the Kibaki
Kenyatta alliance, and to distribute power among different
regional and ethnic groups.
Vice presidential succession has also been a politically volatile issue. With politics
ostensibly being so ethnically determined, it seems odd that, up until 2002, the second
largest ethnic group had never captured either the presidency or the vice-presidency. In
1992, Luyia political leader Elijah Mwangale began gunning for a top seat in the new
government; ‘Mwangale had urged the Abaluhya to unite behind KANU in order to
maximise their political influence as Kenya’s second largest ethnic group . . . The time had
come, he hinted, when the number two position in the government should be held by the
Abaluhya.’43 It took another decade, but Musalia Mudavadi was named the final, and
shortest-lived, vice president in the final months of Moi’s reign, in an attempt to secure
Luyia support for KANU going into the 2002 election. Although the Kenyatta
Mudavadi
KANU ticket failed in 2002, so began a new tradition of using the position to swing the
Luyia vote.
Upon winning the presidency in 2002, Kibaki named Luyia Michael Wamalwa as his
vice president. With Wamalwa’s sudden death on 23 August 2003, after only eight months
in office, newspapers speculated that the job would most likely go to a Luyia to maintain
continuity and not alienate an important Kibaki ally:
 236 J. MacArthur

‘It is only natural for the President to give the seat back to a person from the
region,’ says Mumias MP Wycliffe Osundwa. ‘The region gave the votes he needed
to get the presidency that had eluded him in 1992 and 1997. The VP’s position is
about future politics and Kibaki cannot afford to disappoint the Luhyas. They have
never voted for a sitting government.’44

The obvious choice to some was Moody Awori, the Minister for Home Affairs, a
respected member of the Luyia community and too elderly to be considered a presidential
successor to Kibaki. However, even the Awori option revealed fissures in the Luyia
community. Being of the Samia sub-group, not of Wamalwa’s Bukusu, Awori was seen by
some Bukusu as a political interloper, an obstacle replicated in the 2007 elections with
Mudavadi’s bid for vice president. Some observers took the debate even further. In The
Nation, political consultant Mutahi Ngunyi argued that the prominent position need not
go to another Luyia, as the ‘historical records reflect that the Luhya ‘‘tribe’’ was created by
the colonial administration some time in the 1940s. They did not exist before then and
have no history as a ‘‘tribe’’. As such, the Luhya have never acted collectively in politics.’45
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This succession question in 2003 was not the first time such arguments were used to
undermine the historicity and legitimacy of the Luyia as a relevant political bloc. In 1962
in a Legislative Council Debate over whether to create at independence a Western
Province for the Luyia, prominent Luo lawyer and politician Argwings-Kodhek argued
that the very term ‘Luyia’ was a fabrication, and that ‘it never existed before. We do not
know who these Abaluyia are.’46 In this instance, this type of argument was mobilised as
an attack not only on the Luyia, but also on the very principles of majimboism. The
contemporary relevance of these historical arguments clearly point to the regional
emphasis ODM attempted to foster, encouraging the ethnically plural Luyia community
to bind together not solely on the basis of ethnicity, but as part of larger regional concerns
for the national reorganisation of power.
Despite these arguments, Kibaki nominated Moody Awori as vice president in 2003
and continued the recent trend of courting the Luyia vote through this position. This
trend is of crucial contemporary relevance, as these historical political alliances informed
the strategic choices of all parties in the 2007 elections. ODM and ODM-Kenya both
chose Luyia running mates for their presidential candidates, Musalia Mudavadi and Julia
Ojiambo respectively. Kibaki did not name a running mate before the election, most
likely waiting out the political climate, unsure of which ethnic group would swing
support in his direction, and continuing to use Awori’s influence in the region in the
meantime. Eventually, with the proclamation of Kibaki’s victory, Kalonzo Musyoka was
named vice president, and thus Kibaki used the position to co-opt ODM-Kenya into his
new government. The importance of Western Province politicians in top seats was also
reinforced by the election of ODM-backed Kenneth Marende as Speaker, the third most
powerful position in the government. ODM strategically employed the Masinde
prophecy, using the vice-presidency to make a pledge of succession for a future Luyia
president, to demonstrate the party’s recognition of the strategic importance of the
Western Province in the electoral dynamics of Kenyan politics.
This campaign story was really about how the west was won, and as Professor Egara
Kabaji noted, ‘the winner would be the group that sold its story to voters in the most
creative way’.47 ODM was not the only party battling to secure the Elijah Masinde vote in
this election. Many anti-ODM Bukusu insisted that the prophecy had already been
 How the West was Won 237

fulfilled when the leadership of FORD-Kenya passed from Oginga Odinga to Michael
Wamalwa. This argument underlined the belief among many that Masinde’s prophecy
referred to Bukusu leadership, not Luyia leadership more generally, thus disqualifying a
Maragoli, such as Mudavadi, from its realisation. Such arguments were made to counter
the wave of ODM support, particularly among the youth, that was sweeping Bungoma
District at the time, and dividing the Bukusu vote that for years had been staunchly
united behind FORD-Kenya. The generational gap provided a politically useful space for
the reinterpretation of such prophetic historical narratives. Much of the older generation,
still loyal to FORD-Kenya and yet frustrated by the lack of Bukusu influence in both PNU
and ODM, struggled to combat ODM’s appeal to the younger generations. Demographic
change in Kenya and the so-called ‘youth bulge’, with 42 per cent of the population under
the age of fifteen, meant mobilising young voters was crucial to any victory.48 Kibaki and
Odinga waged the electoral campaign in generational terms; Kibaki propounded his
experience and track record while Odinga called for dramatic change and a new
generation of political leadership. Many Luyia elders believed that Kibaki was taking the
country along ‘polepole’, slowly towards progress; however many of these elders also
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recognised the undeniable force of the youth vote, and the younger generations’
frustrations with the current administration, and thus believed they should vote with the
young and ‘forget the old men’.49 ODM appealed to this youthful voting block,
disillusioned by Kibaki’s failed promises of employment, by promising to represent a new
and younger generation of political leadership. Young voters also were particularly
receptive of ODM’s calls for drastic change. Despite Odinga being 62 years of age himself,
he represented Kibaki, at 75, and his backers as ‘the men of yesterday’, and promised that
half of his ministers would be under the age of 50.50 Indeed, polls conducted early in the
campaign bear out this generational divide, with Odinga leading in all age-sets up to 54
years of age, and Kibaki only taking the lead with voters over 55 years of age.51 ODM was
thus successfully selling its story of generational struggle to the youth. In the Western
Province, ODM sold this story by appropriating a prophetic past to promise future
change.
Musikari Kombo, current FORD-Kenya chairman, realised the danger of ODM’s
Masinde strategy, particularly among young voters. Kombo combined with Kaduyi MP,
Wafula Wamunyinyi to set out to reclaim the Masinde historical legacy, in what would
become a public relations nightmare. The FORD-Kenya members decided in early
October to ‘perform a cleansing ceremony at Masinde’s grave . . . to secure the party’s
fortunes ahead of the General Elections’ and to cleanse it from the outsiders who had
defiled it, i.e. Mudavadi.52 However, the Masinde family reacted fiercely to this proposed
ceremony, saying their support for Raila Odinga’s ODM, who had always recognised the
importance of Masinde, was final and that they would not allow such a cleansing.
Mudavadi had beaten ‘Kombo to the game by sitting on the special stool’, where Masinde
Muliro and Michael Wamalwa had also sat, ‘signifying their new role as leaders of the
Bukusu and the Luhya community as a whole’.53 Kombo and the FORD-Kenya politicians
argued that the prophecy was Bukusu-specific and thus not for any Luyia to fulfil.
However, the Masinde family and original followers of Dini ya Msambwa remained
adamant that the prophecy was meant for all Luyia and that they supported ODM and
Mudavadi’s bid to succeed Odinga and fulfil the prophecy.54
This tension between Mudavadi and the FORD-Kenya representatives was not
surprising as historically, the Maragoli and the Bukusu have been the most distinctly
 238 J. MacArthur

different and the most at odds of the Luyia groups. Much resentment is still felt among
the Bukusu for having been taught by early Maragoli converts through the Friends
Quaker missions. Many on the Luyia Council of Elders affirm that uniting these two
groups remains one of their greatest challenges.55 However, as Professor Kabaji also
pointed out, the use of the prophecy by ODM signified the ‘bringing together of two
populous Luhyia sub-tribes in Western Province. Masinde’s prophecy appears to have
established a set of attitudes that allow members of the various Luhyia subtribes to
perceive themselves as belonging to a single cultural entity with one destiny.’56 Although
this overstates the point, as Masinde’s credentials as a prophet outside of the Bukusu is
questionable, it does point to the uniting force that a Maragoli propounding this
prophecy could have on a previously fragmented political bloc. The prophecy was in fact
more important for its political connotations of succession than for its specific historical
and cultural origins for those outside the Bukusu areas. The strong support witnessed in
Bungoma, the Bukusu district of the Western Province, throws suspicion on the victory of
Kibaki in all four of its constituencies, particularly as the two proponents of Kibaki’s PNU
bid for votes in the region, Kombo and Wamunyinyi, both lost their parliamentary seats
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to ODM candidates in their constituencies. According to the published results, every

other constituency in the Western Province voted overwhelmingly for Raila Odinga for
president.

Conclusion
John Lonsdale recently asked this crucial question as regarded the future of Kenyan
politics: ‘Could ethnic electorates pool their local critiques of power, encouraged by the
inter-ethnicity that often underwrites survival among the poor, to build a common
citizenship against the prejudices inflamed by political tribalism?’57 ODM’s strategy relied
on just such mobilisations of localised criticisms of past governments, inequitable
development and historical injustices to demand political change. Simple ethnic
explanations of the post-election disillusionment and violence cheapen the deep
historical and economic grievances at stake in this election. The Luyia of Western Kenya
continue to defy simple ethnic or political categorisation, and thus demand a more
nuanced approach to understanding the dynamics of campaign strategies and voting
patterns. ODM successfully harnessed the voting power of the Western Province through
calls to low and localised political solutions, regional devolution and promises of power-
sharing. However, whether or not ODM’s success at the parliamentary polls, and disputed
possible success in the presidential elections, would produce the results promised by its
campaign strategies remains an unanswerable question.

Notes
1
Throup and Hornsby, Multi-Party Politics in Kenya, 439.
2
Kisia and Ojwang, ‘Elijah Masinde and the Luhya Prophecy’.
3
Cheeseman, ‘Introduction: Political Linkage and Political Space in the Era of Decolonization’, 4.
4
Andreassen and Tostensen, ‘Of Oranges and Bananas’, 14.
5
Muiruri, ‘ODM ‘Pentagon’ Promises to Keep the Team Intact’.
6
Ohito, ‘Raila’s ‘‘Generals’’ Now Take Charge’.
7
Hornsby and Throup, Multi-Party Politics in Kenya, 231.
8
Nation Correspondent, ‘Kenya: Last Poll, Last Push’.
 How the West was Won 239
9
The Luyia, at times spelt Luhya or Abaluyia, are composed of seventeen tribal groupings: the Bukusu, the
Maragoli, the Wanga, the Marama, the Samia, the Bunyore, the Kabras, the Tachoni, the Kisa, the Batura, the
Buhayo, the Bunyala, the Marach, the Bisukha, the Bidakho, the Batsotso, and the Teriki. For more on pre-
colonial and early colonial ethnic history in Western Kenya see Ochieng’, Historical Studies and Social Change
in Western Kenya; Were, A History of the Abaluyia of Western Kenya, c. 1500
1930;Wagner, ‘The Political
Organization of the Bantu of Kavirondo’, 196
236; Kenya National Archives (KNA)
North Nyanza Political
Record Book. Vol. I. 1900
1916.
10
Hobley, Kenya: From Chartered Company to Crown Colony, 80.
11
For descriptions of the gold rush and early political associations in Western Kenya see Lonsdale, ‘Political
Associations in Western Kenya’, 589
638; Bode, ‘Anti-Colonial Politics within a Tribe’, 85
138; Roberts, ‘The
Gold Boom of the 1930s in East Africa’, 545
62. For debates around land tenure and the territorial extent of
ethnic identity in North Kavirondo see Kenya Land Commission Evidence, Vol. III (Nairobi, 1934).
12
PRO, CO 533/473/5
Petition from NKCA to Secretary of State, 15 January1936; PRO, CO533/473/5

Petition from NKCA to the Secretary of State, 18 June 1936; KNA
PC/NZA/2/655 NKCA ‘Abaluhya’
memorandum to the Imperial Parliament through the Right Honourable Secretary of State for the Colonies,
18 June 1936; Ogot, ‘Mau Mau and Nationhood: The Untold Story’, 13; ‘Avaluyha
Kinship’, NKCA pamphlet,
1935 as quoted in Lonsdale, ‘History of Nyanza’, 539 fn.59.
13
Kanyoro, Unity in Diversity; Itebete, ‘Language Standardization in Western Kenya’, 87
114.
14
Lonsdale, ‘KAU’s Cultures’, 119; Spencer, Kenya African Union, 157.
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15
KNA: PC/NZA/4/20/3
Nyanza Province Minutes of Meeting of NP Security Committee 20/12/60
16
KNA: PC/NZA/1/53
Nyanza Province Annual Report 1960. Provincial Commissioner FA Loyd.
17
Throup and Hornsby, Multi-Party Politics in Kenya, 518.
18
See Lonsdale, ‘Moral Ethnicity and Political Tribalism’, 131
150; Berman, ‘Ethnicity, Patronage and the
African State’, 305
41.
19
For debates between KANU and KADU local factions in Western Kenya regarding majimboism see KNA

GO/1/2/1
2 Kenya Regional Boundaries Commission 1962; For more on the history of majimboism see
Anderson, ‘Yours in Struggle for Majimbo’, 547
64.
20
Nottingham and Sanger, ‘The Kenya General Election of 1963’, 12.
21
Bosire, Julius and Kiragu, Sollo, ‘ODM to Adopt Majimbo System if They Win Poll’, The Nation, 24 September
2007.
22
Ogot, B. A. ‘Transition from Single-Party to Multiparty Political System, 1989
93’, 258
59.
23
Throup and Hornsby, Multi-Party Politics in Kenya, 81.
24
Interviews by the author throughout Western Province¯ and with the Luyia Council of Elders, September

November 2007.
25
ODM Manifesto.
26
Interviews by the author with Teriki and Bukusu Elders on the Luyia Council of Elders and local CDF
representatives, October 2007.
27
EAS Sunday Team, ‘Kibaki, Raila Campaigns Hit Fever Pitch’.
28
ODM Manifesto.
29
Onyango, ‘ODM Rolls out Regional Manifestos’.
30
KNA
DC North Kavirondo Annual Report, 1943.
31
KNA
DC/NN/10/1/5, Dini Ya Msambwa; see also Wipper, Rural Rebels.
32
Wipper, ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Press’, 390.
33
Wipper, Rural Rebels; Hoehler-Fatton, Women of Fire and Spirit; Welbourn and Ogot, A Place to Feel at Home;
Were, ‘Politics, Religion, and Nationalism in Western Kenya, 1942
1962’, 85
104.
34
Wipper, ‘Lofty Visions and Militant Action’, 277
94; De Wolf, ‘Dini ya Msambwa’, 265
76.
35
Anderson and Johnson, Revealing Prophets; Mahone, ‘The Psychology of Rebellion’, 241
58; Ranger,
‘Connexions between ‘‘Primary Resistance’’ Movements and Modern Mass Nationalism in East and Central
Africa’, 437
53.
36
KNA
DC/NN/10/1/5, Special Intelligence Report, North Nyanza, December 1949. With all of these
prophecies, it is important to bear in mind that exact quoting is made dubious by the nature of their
circulation through rumour and word of mouth.
37
KNA
DC/NN/10/1/5, Provincial Police Headquarters, Nyanza, ‘Dini Msambwa’, WRB Pugh, 15/3/48.
38
KNA
DC/WP/4/4, Handing Over Report, Elgon Nyanza, Mr, 3/6/61.
39
Buke, ‘Raila to Fulfil Luhya Dream of Ascending to Presidency’.
40
Sunday Nation Team, ‘Scheming for Power’.
 240 J. MacArthur
41
EAS Team, ‘History Repeats itself as Moi, Kibaki and Uhuru Team Up’.
42
Sunday Standard Team, ‘ODM Claims Kibaki, Uhuru Signed Pact on Succession’.
43
Throup and Hornsby, Multi-Party Politics in Kenya, 213.
44
Ng’ang’a, ‘Wamalwa: The Race is on’.
45
Ngunyi, ‘What Kibaki should Consider in Picking New VP’.
46
KNA
EN/14 West Nyanza District: Debate in the Legislative Council, 19 July 1962.
47
Kabaji, ‘Myths and Stories that will Shape how we Vote’.
48
Heinsohn, ‘Kenya’s Violence’; Kent and Yin, ‘Kenya’; Kahl, ‘Population Growth, Environmental Degradation,
and State-Sponsored Violence’, 80
119.
49
Interview by the author with Kabrasi Elder Shem Musee, 23 October 2007.
50
Rice, ‘Young ‘Cheetahs’ on the Campaign Trail in Kenya’.
51
Otieno, ‘Raila is the Youth’s Favourite Candidate’.
52
Wanyonyi, ‘Sect Founder’s Kin Disown Ceremony’.
53
Ojwang and Obonyo, ‘Mudavadi Beat Kombo to Sect’s Special Stool’.
54
Interviews by the author with the Masinde family and Dini Ya Msambwa followers, 10
12 October 2007.
55
Interviews by the author with the Luyia Council of Elders, September and October 2007.
56
Kabaji, ‘Myths and Stories that will Shape how we Vote’.
57
Lonsdale, ‘Moral and Political Argument in Kenya’, 81.
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