Azimio leader Raila Odinga during a press briefing in Nairobi on March 8, 2024.
Former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has chosen the Congo as the start of his campaign for the African Union Commission seat, pledging a resolute plan to end conflict, just as much as counter climate change in the Great Lakes Region.
Mr Odinga has flown in and out of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Congo Republic, this week, just days after he attended the inauguration of President Paul Kagame in Kigali earlier on Monday. The three countries are crucial to the conflict in eastern DRC, as well as the mitigation of climate change. They form part of the wider Congo Basin, considered the world’s ‘right lung’.
In Brazzaville on Friday, Odinga met with President Denis Sassou N’guesso.
“As I advance by AUC bid, we discussed security, development, climate change—vital to a prosperous and sustainable future,” Mr Odinga said.
The former Kenyan Prime Minister has promised to help the continent silence guns, mitigate climate change and deal with poverty from its own resources, should he win the AUC Chairperson’s seat.
“His endorsement strengthens our mission,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter on Saturday. The Presidency pledged to "support' him in a dispatch that indicated Raila had visited to seek AUC vote.
Mr Odinga is seeking to replace Moussa Faki Mahamat of Chad as the next AUC Chairperson. But he must contend with rivalry from Djibouti’s Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, Mauritius' Anil Gayan and Richard James Randriamandrato, a former Madagascar Foreign Minister. The Djiboutian Minister had incidentally picked Nairobi as his first stop last week to seek votes. But the candidates will be confirmed once a panel of experts reviews their CVs, by next month.
Odinga, at 79, will be the oldest of the contenders, but also perhaps the most experienced, having been in Kenyan politics for 4 decades including serving as Prime Minister in a coalition government between 2008 and 2012.
On Thursday, he arrived in Kinshasa seeking the DRC's vote. But he came to these shores as a special kind of envoy too, seeking to calm tensions between Kinshasa and Nairobi over supposed bias in the east Congo conflict.
Mr Odinga met with President Felix Tshisekedi, a longtime personal friend whose vote for Odinga may depend on how Nairobi resolves some of the latest episodes of mistrust.
The former Kenyan prime minister and President Tshisekedi also discussed a range of issues, including security, development and climate change, “without which it is impossible to talk about "development,” according to a dispatch from the Congolese Presidency.
“Our conversation centred on the foundational issues of security, development, and climate change essential for creating lasting prosperity and advancing our shared future,” said the former prime minister on X.
DRC did confirm Odinga came to campaign but left out guarantees on whether it would give him the vote. That wasn’t surprising.
At a time when the DRC is preoccupied with the question of persistent insecurity in its eastern part, the Congolese head of state asked his guest to prioritise the search for peace on the continent and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, if he is elected to head the African Union Commission.
Tshisekedi has recently accused Kenyan President William Ruto of stifling the eastern Congo peace bid known as the Nairobi Process. It was to be mediated by former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Tshisekedi's ally and was meant to bring DRC and armed groups to the table. Those talks had begun during Kenyatta days but have almost stalled in Ruto times.
Mr Odinga promised that if he succeeds Moussa Faki Mahamat, he will “take all the necessary steps and take action to ensure that the guns fall silent with a view to lasting peace in the east of the DRC.”
The mistrust with Kenya had seen DRC drag its feet in recognising the new envoy to Kinshasa. Congolese diplomat in Nairobi also cut short his tenure, having earlier been recalled by Kinshasa to protest Nairobi allowing some rebel leaders forming an alliance from Kenya. Tshisekedi had earlier blamed Ruto for taking sides with Rwanda, which Kinshasa accuses of supporting M23 rebels.
Odinga is also committed to restoring peace to his country, Kenya, where recent Gen-Z protests forced the government to drop some punitive taxes as well as remove some ministers seen as corrupt. President Ruto ended up naming some ministers from Odinga’s party, ODM.
“While I am running for the AUC chairperson's position, my priority remains to stabilise my home country for future generations", he wrote on his X account.
The president of the continental institution is elected by secret ballot by a two-thirds majority of member states with voting rights. The term of office is four years, renewable once.
Additional reporting by Aggrey Mutambo
