Odinga is the Key.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga was not an idiot, but he was spectacularly naive. Even in the heat of anti-colonial combat, Kenya's first vice-president should have seen the signs. His increasing marginalisation at the hands of the Kiambu Mafia should have warned him that he had no chance of ever succeeding Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. In fact if he had not placed such faith in the party, he would not have been so outmaneuvered in 1968/1969. As it is his son seems to be treading the same path he did - with the same results too.

Raila Odinga has become the indispensable factor in Kenyan politics. Not the president, nor the deputy president nor any of the jokers screaming at the tops of their voices seeking validation in the eyes of the people. Raila Odinga is Kenyan politics. When he speaks, when he acts, when he is spoken about, when he is acted against - all these shape how the political field looks like and what its mood shall be. Without Raila Odinga, some may believe, politics could be easier, less fraught with disappointment or anger. But they are wrong; Raila Odinga is the political bellwether. He reflects the will of the people better than the government or the parliamentary parties or the official opposition as a whole.

While all the foregoing is true, it is also equally true that Mr Odinga is the truest reflection of the moribund politics of Kenya. He is also a mirror of the failures of politicians in Kenya over the past decades. Mr Odinga is proof that it is not policies or ideals or even ideas that matter in Kenya; what matters and what has always mattered are ethnic coalitions that do little to improve the lives of the people but hold the entire nation hostage to the whims of a vocal, moneyed minority elite. Mr Odinga and his bete noires in the ruling coalition are Siamese Twins. The only difference between the two is that the former is out of government while the latter is the government.

Mr Odinga's announcement that he will seek the presidency at the next general election has elicited faux squeals of umbrage from the Jubilee perennial whingers. Faux because they couldn't wish for a better lightning rod than Mr Odinga, whose image they will ride like a donkey to victory. He polarises the political environment, not on the basis of ideology, ideas or principles, but simply because he himself has played the ethnic card on more than one occasion. Mr Odinga came close in 2013. Unless the gods of elections smile benevolently on him, the next general election will be his last and lasting electoral loss.

That is not to say that Mr Odinga is irrelevant. Looking at the energies the likes of Aden Duale and Moses Kuoria expend in checking Mr Odinga's maneuvres, Mr Odinga is definitely the key figure to determine the pace and the tone of the election, and politics leading up to the election. His announcement is more than two years early, but it will so sow panic in the Jubilee house, the Jubilants will likely lose their minds. In their obsession with Mr Odinga, they will not tend to their constituents other than rile them up with the spectre of an Odinga victory. They will neglect their constituents and as a result they will become proud members of the 75% former MPs who never made it to the Big House in Nairobi. They will use Mr Odinga for their own ends, and they will lose their deposits because of it.