By OTIENO OTIENO

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Kenya’s former prime minister Raila Odinga’s sickness with Covid-19 could prolong tensions within a coalition put together by President Uhuru Kenyatta to campaign for the planned constitutional referendum.

Mr Odinga made his positive test for the coronavirus public on Thursday evening, ending days of speculation about his health and admission to a top private hospital in Nairobi.

Before being taken ill on Monday, he had been expected to meet President Kenyatta to discuss complaints by his party of an attempted hijack of the referendum campaign by powerful administration officials keen to influence the presidential succession in 2022.

Grievances

Senator James Orengo, a confidante of the former prime minister, went public with their grievances last weekend, alleging the involvement of State House and Interior ministry officials in a conspiracy to prop up an unnamed politician to take over from President Kenyatta and frustrate Mr Odinga’s ambitions.

Mr Orengo also sensationally claimed that the same officials abetted violence in a parliamentary by-election on March 4, in western Kenya, to ensure that the candidate sponsored by Mr Odinga’s ODM party did not win.

Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho, named by ODM officials as being part of the scheme, has yet to comment publicly about the allegations.

However, a number of politicians from central Kenya region, where President Kenyatta hails from, have sprung to Mr Kibicho’s defence, accusing ODM of unfairly targeting public servants for political attacks.

They have also challenged Mr Odinga’s ODM party to quit the co-operation with the ruling Jubilee Party if it felt its expectations were not being met.

The tensions in the loose coalition, popularly known as the Handshake, symbolically broke out around its third anniversary — having been consummated with the signing of the co-operation agreement between President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga on March 9, 2018.

The surprise truce between the two former bitter rivals, coming on the back of President Kenyatta’s first nullified victory and a repeat election in 2017, has been widely credited for political stability in the country for the past three years.

But mistrust arising from the president’s recent efforts to build a broader coalition of party leaders to campaign for the constitutional referendum and the politics around his succession has put the Handshake on shaky ground.

In addition to the two original Handshake principals, the referendum coalition includes presidential hopefuls Musalia Mudavadi, Kalonzo Musyoka and Gideon Moi.

Mr Mudavadi and Mr Musyoka, who were part of the opposition National Super Alliance (Nasa) coalition that backed Mr Odinga’s presidential candidacy in the 2017, fell out with the former prime minister over his mock swearing-in as the “people’s president” in January 2018.

Accusations

Days before a February 25 meeting at State House where the referendum coalition announced plans for countrywide campaigns, the two had escalated their verbal attacks on Mr Odinga, accusing him of reneging on a deal to endorse either of them for the presidency in the next election.

Coalition fallouts, public claims of betrayal and reunions are common in Kenyan politics, especially in the run-up to elections.

But with the referendum only three or four months away, President Kenyatta, who has staked his legacy on the constitutional changes, will no doubt be hoping that Mr Odinga regains his health quickly and returns to help calm the disquiet in the ODM camp.

A physically fit Mr Odinga would also bring much needed energy to the campaign that none of the other party leaders would.