Musalia Mudavadi

Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi (born 21 September 1960) is a Kenyan politician and land economist who is currently serving as Prime Cabinet Secretary of Kenya and expanded role of Foreign & Diaspora Affairs Minister of Kenya, he is also the party leader of the Amani National Congress (ANC), one of the founding political parties, of the Kenya Kwanza alliance.

Mudavadi, first became a Member of Parliament in 1989 when he was elected unopposed in a by-election to take the Sabatia Constituency seat vacated by his deceased father Moses Mudamba Mudavadi.

Mudavadi has served as Minister for Supplies and Marketing (1989 - 1993), Finance (1993 - 1997), Agriculture (1997 - 1999), Transport, Communications and Information (2000 - 2002).

He went on to win the seat in 1992 and 1997 general elections.

He served as the 7th Vice-President of Kenya in 2002 and Deputy Prime Minister (2008–2012), when he resigned to contest for the Presidency in the 2013 Kenyan general election and emerged third.

In addition, he has served as vice-president (2002) and also Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Government of the Republic of Kenya (2008 - 2013).

In late 2002 Mudavadi was the last and shortest serving Vice-President of Kenya under President Daniel Arap Moi.

Mudavadi ran as Uhuru Kenyatta's running mate in the 2002 election.

Despite the support of incumbent President Moi, the Kenyatta/Mudavadi ticket was beaten by Kibaki/Wamalwa and Mudavadi lost his Sabatia parliamentary seat.

He was the deputy party leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) (2005–2012) and Party Leader of the United Democratic Forum Party (UDF) from May 2012 to July 2015.

Mudavadi, was raised in a Quaker Christian denomination family.

He is of the ethnic Maragoli dialect, an extract of the populous Luhya community of western Kenya.

After his late father Moses S. B. Mudavadi, he is the only other Kenyan politician who does not swear oaths of office because his faith forbids it.

Mudavadi schooled at Nairobi Primary School,then Jamhuri and Nairobi School for his A- levels and the University of Nairobi.

He pursued a Bachelor of Arts(Land Economics) degree.

For sports, he played rugby as a winger for his high school and university's Mean Machine RFC.

In 2005 Mudavadi made a political comeback by joining Raila Odinga's Liberal Democratic Party ( LDP) and aligning himself with the 'No' side in that year's Referendum on the proposed new Constitution amidst speculation that he was set to become the leading Luhya politician.

After the 2005 referendum, the “No” side formed the Orange Democratic Movement- Kenya (ODM-K). But after the ODM-K split, Mudavadi joined the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) where he rose to the Deputy Party Leader.

In 2007 Mudavadi sought the nomination of the ODM candidate for the December 2007 presidential election.

On September 1, 2007, Mudavadi came second with 391 votes to Odinga's 2,656 votes in a disputed nomination process.

However, along with the other defeated candidates, Mudavadi supported Odinga and Mudavadi 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 post election crisis developed, which eventually led to the signing of a power-sharing agreement (National Accord) between Kibaki and Odinga.

As part of the grand coalition government, Mudavadi was named as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for 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 2008.

In 2012, Musalia Mudavadi sought for the nomination of ODM to be its presidential candidate for the 2013 General Election.

He later on decamped from ODM sighting lack of political freedom in the party.

He said the illegal/unconstitutional political mechanisms placed his way made it impossible for any other aspirant to seek a successful free and fair presidential nomination.

Mudavadi left ODM after he was technically locked out of the nomination race through a party constitution clause that gave the party leader a direct nomination as the presidential candidate.

Musalia, however, refused to resign as the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya citing that the office was a public office and not a party office.

He later took over the United Democratic Front Party (UDF) and became its flag-bearer for the presidential election.

Briefly, he joined Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto to form the Jubilee Coalition 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 flag-bearer for the UDF/TNA/URP Jubilee coalition.

Uhuru surprised the nation by admitting that he indeed signed the agreement but blamed his decision to renege on "dark forces", yet the breach of agreement resulted from fierce objection by Uhuru's supporters insisting that he must be on the presidential ballot.

But earlier, Uhuru had insisted that nominations had to be done through voting by party delegates.

Mudavadi objected saying the joint candidate had been agreed upon by consensus and that the partners in the Jubilee Coalition were new and didn't have bonafide delegates selected through grassroots elections.

Mudavadi made a solo run on UDF and came third in the race, for the top leadership in the country in that election.

After the 2013 elections, elements within UDF begun a disruptive scheme to mortgage the party to the ruling Jubilee Coalition.

In July 2015 Mudavadi abandoned UDF, which was later dissolved.