Musalia Mudavadi

Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi (born 21 September 1960, Sabatia, Vihiga District) is a Kenyan politician, who served as Deputy Prime Minister from 2008- 2012 May when he resigned officially to join the presidential race and the current Party Leader of Amani National Congress (ANC) after decamping from the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) led by the prime minister Raila Odinga in 2012 where before his resignation he served as the deputy party leader.He was third in the Kenyan general election, 2013.

He first became an MP in 1989, when he was elected unopposed to take the Sabatia Constituency seat vacated by his deceased father Moses Mudavadi.

In late 2002, Mudavadi was the last and shortest serving Vice-President of Kenya under President Daniel arap Moi. Mudavadi was appointed in an unsuccessful attempt to bring the then Western Province votes into the camp of KANU, which had been the party of government since independence.

Mudavadi ran for Vice-President as Uhuru Kenyatta's running mate in the 2002 election. Despite the support of the outgoing President Moi, the KANU political machine and the provincial administration, the Kenyatta/Mudavadi ticket was roundly beaten and Mudavadi lost his Sabatia parliamentary seat.

In 2005, Mudavadi made a political comeback by aligning himself with the 'No' side in that year's Referendum on the proposed new Constitution. This aligned him clearly with Raila Odinga's LDP and it was speculated that he could become the leading Luhya politician.

After the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) split from the ODM-K, Mudavadi sought the nomination of the ODM as its candidate for the December 2007 presidential election. On 1 September 2007, the ODM elected Odinga as its presidential candidate; Mudavadi took second place with 391 votes, far short of Odinga's 2,656 votes. Along with the other defeated candidates, Mudavadi expressed his support for Odinga afterward, and he was named Odinga's running mate for the election.

Although the election was officially won by Kibaki, ODM disputed the official results and claimed victory for Odinga. A violent crisis developed, which eventually led to the signing of a power-sharing agreement between Kibaki and Odinga. As part of the grand coalition Cabinet, Mudavadi was named as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Government on 13 April 2008. He was the Deputy Prime Minister representing the ODM, while Kenyatta was the Deputy Prime Minister representing Kibaki's Party of National Unity. Mudavadi and the rest of the Cabinet were sworn in on 17 April.

In 2012 Musalia Mudavadi sought for the Nomination of ODM to be its presidential candidate for the 2013 general elections. He later on decamped from the party sighting lack of political freedom in the party. He said that the ODM party Leader Raila Odinga had placed illegal/unconstitutional political mechanisms that made it impossible for any other president aspirant to seek a successful free and fair presidential nomination. He later on joined United Democratic Party a party from the central region and became its flag-bearer for the presidential election. He came a close third in the run for top leadership in the country.

in 2015, Musalia Mudavadi formed his own party that would take him to the presidential race come 2017. Amani National Congress a party that has already declared him as its presidential candidate has already received a lot of insights from the political field.

Involvement in graves plot scandal

In March 2010,Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi come under investigation by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission(KACC) over the Sh283 million cemetery land fraud. KACC officials said that they wanted to establish whether the minister was party to the fraud in which the City Council of Nairobi bought land valued at Sh24 million for nearly Sh300 million. Mr Mudavadi protested his innocence and said KACC was being unfair by accusing him without giving him a chance to be heard. Investigations are currently ongoing into the matter.

LSK blacklist

On 16 January 2012 the Law Society of Kenya(LSK) identified Mudavadi as one of the public officials have been mentioned adversely in various reports on issues ranging from corruption to economic crimes. The LSK advised voters not to vote those mentioned in the report as they had previously compromised.

Mudavadi left ODM after he was technically locked out of the presidential race through a party constitution clause that gave the party leader a direct nomination to be a presidential candidate. Musalia however refused to resign as the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya citing that the office of the Deputy Prime minister is a political office therefore he would not resign. He then joined the Uhuru Kenyatta and Williams Ruto's Jubilee coalition briefly bringing together UDF,URP and TNA parties. However, Mudavadi left the coalition after a breach of contract which had stated that Uhuru Kenyatta would step down in his favour as the presidential flagbearer for the UDF/TNA/URP coalition. Uhuru surprised the nation by admitting that he signed the agreement but strongly defended his decision claiming he was coerced by "dark forces". This breach of agreement resulted from fierce objection by Uhuru's supporters who insisted that he must be the coalition's presidential aspirant and that any nominations had to be done through voting by party delegates. Mudavadi objected saying the front-runner should be agreed on by consensus because of the agreement with Uhuru and the fact that the delegates themselves had not been selected through grassroots elections.

Mudavadi is the first Deputy prime minister while Uhuru Kenyatta is the 2nd Deputy Prime minister. Both Deputy prime ministers do not have ministerial portofolios. Uhuru resigned in march and musalia mudavadi resigned as Local government minister early May 2012

Born and raised in a quaker family, Mudavadi is an ethnic Maragoli from the populous Luhya community. After his late father, he is the only other Kenyan politician who does not swear oaths of office because his faith forbids it. His staunch quaker upbringing may be the reason that he almost comes across as a naive and laidback player in Kenya's vibrant political scene: Quakers are notorious for their honesty and respected worldwide for their pacificism, strict adherence to speaking the truth at all times (swearing an oath is admitting the opposite), aversion to war and violence, plain dressing and use of plain language.

As a youngster, he played rugby union for Mean Machine RFC.