Musalia Mudavadi

Musalia Mudavadi

Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi was born on September 21, 1960 and is a Kenyan politician, currently serving as Deputy Prime Minister and is currently a presidential hopeful under the United Democratic Forum Party (UDF) after decamping from the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) led by the prime minister Raila Odinga where before his resignation he served as the Deputy party leader.He is a Presidential Candidate for the Kenyan general election 2013. 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 is not resign. Mudavadi is the 1st 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

Mudavadi was born in Sabatia, Vihiga District. 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 Luhya tribe 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 September 1, 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 April 13, 2008. He is the Deputy Prime Minister representing the ODM, while Kenyatta is the Deputy Prime Minister representing Kibaki's Party of National Unity. Mudavadi and the rest of the Cabinet were sworn in on April 17.

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