PREVIEW
Party challenge to Odinga potentially harms Ruto’s 2027 re-election bid
Orange Democratic Movement General Secretary Edwin Sifuna has stepped up his attacks on the deal between his party leader Raila Odinga and President William Ruto. Sifuna says that the ten-point pact between Odinga and Ruto, which formalised the arrangement that sees five ODM officials in Ruto’s cabinet, is ‘dead’.
Sifuna has been a vocal critic of Ruto for years, and particularly since last June’s Gen Z protests. He has now hinted that ODM could support Fred Matiang’i’s bid for the presidency if that offered the best chance of ousting Ruto at the August 2027 elections (AC Vol 65 No 17, Kenyatta’s favourite minister plans presidential bid).
‘Matiang’i has his faults, but if he is going to help us remove William Ruto, so be it,’ he stated.
That points not just to the divisions within ODM but also to the party’s power ahead of the elections. With Ruto and his closest allies waging war on central Kenya – which delivered around two thirds of his votes in 2022 – the President is increasingly reliant of Odinga delivering Western Kenya and the Coast (AC Vol 66 No 15, Gen Z protestors vie with old politics). Without Odinga’s base it is hard to see how Ruto could win the 50% plus one required to win an election.
Matiang’i, the Interior Cabinet Secretary in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government, has the nomination of what remains of Kenyatta’s Jubilee party and has been touted by some as a potential candidate representing the Gen Z protest movement. But without ODM, or at least a sizable chunk of its vote, it is hard to see how he or any other opposition candidate could be competitive.
Odinga is under growing pressure from the ODM’s supporters to dismiss Sifuna but has done little to rein him in thus far. In an interview on 24 July, Sifuna said that he would resign if asked by the party leadership.
ODM will hold its national delegates conference in October, where it will hold long overdue elections for its national officials, and is likely to discuss the party’s stance ahead of 2027. Despite his government pact with Ruto, Odinga has consistently stated in public that ODM will run its own slate of candidates, though without specifying whether this would include a run for the presidency.
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