President William Ruto breaks the news of Raila Odinga’s death at State House in Nairobi /PCS
When President William Ruto unveiled his idea of a “broad-based government,” he imagined it as the political masterstroke that would carry him beyond 2027. By drawing Raila Odinga—the towering figure of Kenya’s opposition—into the architecture of his administration, Ruto sought to neutralise dissent, unify the political class and stabilise a turbulent country under a single umbrella. For a while, the optics worked. The handshake had returned, this time with a new script and a different lead actor.
But politics, like life, is often governed by Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Raila’s death this week has thrown a wrench into the gears of Ruto’s grand design. It is not just the passing of a statesman; it is the implosion of a carefully calculated political equation. Ruto’s reelection game plan, which had come to depend heavily on Raila’s symbolic and structural support, must now be rewritten from scratch.
