• KENYA

After Odinga, opposition politicians jostle for position

A generational battle to decide who succeeds the veteran leader may also seal the fate of President William Ruto’s government

Until the death of Raila Amolo Odinga from a heart attack on 15 October, President William Samoei Ruto’s path to re-election in August 2027 had seemed clear: having turned his back on the central Mount Kenya region, he would need Odinga to deliver his Western and Coastal support bases under a pact offering Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) a string of key ministries and perhaps the deputy presidency. 

The agreement between Odinga and Ruto last July – days after Ruto sacked his cabinet in response to Gen Z protests which swept the country and even entered parliament – put five ODM members into senior cabinet positions and gave junior ministerial jobs, senior civil service posts and parastatal appointments to dozens of others. But it has never been codified in a formal coalition agreement beyond a 10-point Memorandum of Understanding released in February that was strikingly short on detail (AC Vol 65 No 16, Raila names his price & Vol 66 No 6, Ex-rivals Ruto and Odinga tussle for power in new alliance). Odinga’s death made Ruto the politician most obviously vulnerable to a shake-up in ODM’s leadership. 

Odinga’s state funeral on 17 October – like most Kenyan political funerals – was part campaign rally, part mourning. Ruto, the chief mourner, used his eulogy to insist that he still needs ODM, and he is likely to increase his use of presidential patronage in the coming months to keep the party on board (Dispatches 20/10/25, Odinga’s grand send-off marred by deaths).

‘The strength of ODM matters to me because it is how we are going to have a strong democracy,’ Ruto said. ‘ODM will either form the next government or be a part of the next government. What I will not accept, in honour of Odinga, is people playing with ODM to make it an alienated opposition party.’ The early signs are that Odinga’s allies do not want to rock the boat either. Elder brother Oburu Oginga, the senator for Siaya County, has been appointed interim leader while the party selects a successor.

The appointment of 82-year-old Oginga is a nod towards continuity – but also to the generational divisions within ODM. Apart from Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga and Mining and Blue Economy Cabinet Secretary Hassan Joho, most of the establishment ODM leaders who want to remain part of the Ruto government are of pensionable age.

Driverless vehicle
Formed in 2005, ODM is comfortably the oldest of Kenya’s main political parties. Despite being born out of the campaign for constitutional reform, and nominally leftist – a nod to Odinga’s East German education and early career – it was scarcely ideological. It was widely seen as Odinga’s personal vehicle and, like its leader, struggled for presence and support outside Western Kenya, the Coast and Nairobi. Kenyan parties – even former President Daniel arap Moi’s Kenya African National Union – have collapsed once their leader is gone. Without Odinga, there could be pressure to fold ODM into Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza coalition.   

That notion was given short shrift by Siaya Governor James Orengo, a long-time Odinga ally, who used his own eulogy at a burial ceremony at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Technology in Siaya to warn against Odinga’s death being used as a pretext to return to one-party politics.

‘Political parties are the foundations of democracy. Any arrangement we go into should not be ones that kill political parties,’ said Orengo. He and Kisumu Governor Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o – both pre-eminent elders of the party – will be important voices in the succession. But Orengo and Nyong’o are 74 and 80 respectively, and neither is in robust health.

Odinga’s final and best chance of winning the presidency was universally seen as being in 2022 – but he never ruled out another run. Having lost the election to become chair of the African Union Commission in February this year, he deliberately left himself room for manoeuvre ahead of August 2027, stating that ODM would run a slate of candidates but without committing to a presidential nominee. An ODM Central Committee meeting in July – called to address divisions between Mining and Cooperatives Cabinet Secretaries Hassan Joho and Wycliffe Oparanya, both former deputy party leaders, and ODM Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna – concluded that it would field candidates in the parliamentary, gubernatorial and county elections, but did not mention the presidency (AC Vol 66 No 16, Odinga’s big tent politics are close to collapse).

The battle over Odinga’s intentions will go a long way towards determining ODM’s future. Wanga – a potential leadership candidate who has been suggested as a possible running mate for Ruto in 2027 – says that, in his final days, Odinga committed to staying the course with Ruto.

‘He said he made a clear decision to walk with you for the stability and unity of the nation inside the broad-based government, that is the last instruction standing, and as a party that is where we will stand,’ she said on 18 October.

That has been refuted by Sifuna, who – along with Embakasi East MP Babu Owino – is among a group of prominent ODM officials who want the party to appeal to the Gen Z movement and other young Kenyans. Many of them felt that Odinga’s decision to go in with Ruto, after the state’s use of kidnapping, intimidation and extrajudicial killing to suppress the protests, badly tarnished his legacy as a pro-democracy campaigner during Moi’s presidency. 

They believe they can overturn the part of Ruto’s electoral calculus that was predicated on a low turnout – with most of Kenya’s under-40s, the bulk of whom want to move away from the country’s ethnic and tribally driven politics, either being denied voting cards or declining to vote.

However, Sifuna’s opponents within ODM have been demanding his resignation for months. Odinga’s dominance and control meant that he could keep the factions from descending into open conflict (Dispatches 28/7/25, Sifuna goes rogue as ODM splits deepen). Without ‘Baba’, an ODM split cannot be ruled out.

Crossroads
Which direction to take is the main decision facing ODM leaders. Wanga, Joho – a former Governor of Mombasa – Oparanya, Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi and Junet Mohamed, ODM’s leader in the National Assembly, lead the pro-Ruto continuity faction. None of them has national appeal.

The vacuum also leaves a golden opportunity for the Anyone But Ruto group of leaders – including former Deputy President Kalonzo Musyoka, Ruto’s former deputy Rigathi Gachagua (impeached last year) and former Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i. Seizing the bulk of Odinga’s support could easily propel one of them to the presidency.

Musyoka – Odinga’s running mate in 2017 – is already positioning himself as the pre-eminent opposition leader, claiming Odinga’s mantle. After the 2022 election, Musyoka stepped into the role as Odinga, whose health was already failing, took a post-election sabbatical.

‘We never got to Canaan. There were indeed crocodiles across the River Jordan, as we used to say,’ he said at the funeral. The Canaan reference – a metaphor for a fair, corruption-free and prosperous Kenya – was often used by Odinga on the campaign trail. Musyoka was confirmed as the presidential candidate for his Wiper Democratic Movement at a national delegates’ convention in Nairobi on 10 October, which also agreed to rename the party as the Wiper Patriotic Front (WPF).

While Musyoka has long dominated the three Ukambani counties east of Nairobi – delivering over 80% of the region’s vote to Odinga in 2017 and 2022 – he has never commanded cross-country appeal (AC Vol 66 No 5, The anti-Ruto alliance).

The main threat to Ruto in 2027 has probably not changed with Odinga’s demise. None of the political establishment figures has the name recognition or appeal to oust him. But should Sifuna and younger ODM leaders seize control of the party, they could hasten Kenya’s shift towards de-ethnicised politics – and upend the old order.

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