There’s just under a week to go before the 46th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union Commission (AUC) where Foreign Affairs ministers from 49 African countries will gather. It is a meeting that will provide pretty much the last chance for lobbying, handshaking and backroom machinations in order to influence the vote for the next chairperson of the AUC. Three days later the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government will be held in Addis Ababa on February 15th to 16th. Following that meeting the new chairman of the AUC will be declared.

In contention for the AUC chairman’s job are Djibouti’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Mahamoud Youssouf, former Madagascar Foreign Minister Richard Randriamandrato, and Kenya’s very own opposition leader in perpetuity Raila Omollo Odinga.

Raila Odinga – Always the bridesmaid?

Raila Odingo is well used to standing for election and equally used to losing them. He has stood for president of Kenya five times and lost five times. The question is, can the 80-year-old political veteran Raila Odinga finally win an election?

If he loses it will not be for the want of trying. Odinga has glad-handed his way through Africa, meeting the presidents of Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and all the heads of states of the nations of East Africa.

Meanwhile Odinga has enjoyed the full support of his recent enemy, President of Kenya William Ruto, who has campaigned president-to-president on Odinga’s behalf. And Kenya’s Prime cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi is ‘interacting’ with Foreign Affairs ministers from across the continent.

Odinga has also, attempted at least, to re-package himself as a Pan-Africanist in the mould of Egypt’s founding father, President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

A ‘resounding’ victory in prospect?

According to Odinga’s campaign team it’s all going very well. 49 out of Africa’s 55 countries can vote (six of them have been subject to coups in recent times and cannot vote). Of the 49, Odinga’s camp claim support from 28 (Odinga needs 34 votes) with the prospect of an outright win in the first round (two-thirds of the votes cast) and there’s even been talk of a “resounding” victory. (But when have Raila Odinga’s campaign leaders ever claimed anything else, just prior to defeat in an election?)

Kenya’s former Ambassador to the United States, Elkanah Odembo, who co-chairs Odinga’s secretariat told The Standard newspaper that “his energy level is remarkable”, which is in marked contrast however, to reports that say the octogenarian is not able to stay fully awake in meetings lasting over 30 minutes.

So, can Raila Odinga win election as chair of the AUC? Perhaps not.

First, just because 28 African leaders have pledged their support for Odinga that doesn’t mean they will actually vote for him. Politics is a very fickle business.

Second, Raila Odinga does indeed know a lot of African presidents and leading politicians. They know him. And they will remember him. Odinga is, after all, the man who over many years has “criticized their political credentials” as one former Kenyan Ambassador, an Odinga supporter, told me recently.

This could well be Raila Odinga’s last election campaign.