IMANI: ODM’s rendezvous with Ruto: Lifeline or landmine?
The party teeters on a familiar precipice as history offers clear precedents for parties facing their founder’s exit.
by CATHY IMANI
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ODM leaders during the party's 20th celebrations in Mombasa /FILE
The air in ODM’s backyard is thick with
more than just dust. Infighting has now dominated public discourse, causing
jitters that the fissures may finally crack wide open.
Adding to ODM’s woes is
its current affiliation with President William Ruto. The has culminated into
whispers of a 2027 coalition, but this feels less like revival and more like
opportunism.
If anything, aligning with the head of state is beginning to look a lot like a problem to the party, highlighting
ODM’s role as a political outfit that enters
agreements for the political survival of a few and not for the welfare of the
masses.
The situation points to a foundational problem: Kenyan
political parties are largely democratically unsound and poorly grounded to
survive their leaders.
As new party leader Oburu Oginga
struggles to steady the ship and leaders insist ODM is stable, the disjointed
communication from party ranks can no longer be ignored.
Murmurs of a split
have grown louder after Makadara MP George Aladwa led Nairobi delegates in
backing Oburu’s leadership early this week. Aladwa went on to insist that ODM
would partner with UDA, asking those against the arrangement to ship out.
He is only the latest entrant to support the party’s dalliance with the Kenya Kwanza
administration and pour cold water on those calling for the party to revert to its
previous identity—speaking for the people.
Those against—secretary general
Edwin Sifuna, Embakasi MP Babu Owino and Siaya Governor James Orengo, among
others—appear to be increasingly edged out.
ODM teeters on a familiar precipice as
history offers clear precedents for parties facing their founder’s exit.
Take the cautionary
tale of Ford-Kenya.
After the death of its unifying leader Kijana Wamalwa in
2003, the party fractured and diminished into a regional rump. It proved that
parties built around individuals often die with them, unable to institutionalise
beyond their founder.
Then there’s Kanu—the gritty survivor.
Despite Jomo Kenyatta’s death in 1978, Kanu endured under Daniel Moi by
morphing its patronage networks. While even Uhuru Kenyatta’s 2013 ditch for TNA
couldn’t kill it outright, Gideon Moi was left to tinker on with Kanu and its
faded glory. However, now a shadow of its former self, its longevity showcases
some reinvention through adaptability rather than rigid nostalgia.
It would seem Ruto is walking his
predecessors footsteps and his very own UDA will not live to see 2027—not in
its current state anyway. Chances are, UDA and ODM (either in its entirety or a
fraction of the orange) will come together and morph into a totally different
entity.
Another scenario would see the President waltz into ODM and
become its flagbearer, as a number of leaders within the party have invited him
to do. Whichever way, UDA looks stillborn.
Narc, by contrast, died a spectacular
death. Mwai Kibaki’s 2002 triumph shattered its rainbow coalition post-2005
referendum, as ethnic betrayals birthed PNU and ODM in its rubble—no
reinvention, just wholesale collapse. Power and greed snuffed out the dream, demonstrating that without institutional
glue, unity unravels after victory.
The Kenyan party problem is that they
are built on quicksand. They are not institutions but personal electoral vehicles—tools for ambition, not vessels for ideology, setting them up for premature death.
They often die because they are
either funded and controlled by one individual or a tiny clique, lack
grassroots institutional structures—the ‘office’ is a Nairobi briefcase and serve short-term
coalition-building needs, not long-term vision. Loyalty is to the person who
dispenses cash and tickets, not to a party manifesto.
For ODM to craft a new precedent, it
must dare to be different: to immediately transition from a person-centric
party to a system-driven one. It should establish more transparent,
member-driven funding models and candidate nomination systems. Additionally,
the party should embrace the ‘Ideology Audit’ to attract thinkers, not just sycophants.
Perhaps the most unpopular—but probably
best step—would be to pick an obscure pilot. The next leader must be a nobody.
As radical as it sounds, electing a leader not named Oburuand with no presidential ambition might be ODM’s saving grace.
That also
means leaving out Ruto. Instead, choosing a competent manager to rebuild the
brand for the next life cycle would prove the party is bigger than one family.
If that were the case, Oburu would have to be appointed a more nonchalant
position and even Winnie Odinga would only be considered in matters such as
policy, not presumed leadership inheritance.
As it stands, ODM’s future hinges on a
choice: remain a beloved but fading monument, or combust and reconstitute as a
genuine, resilient institution. There is no quick fix.
To live well into the next
20 years and beyond, it must perform the surgery Kenyan politics desperately
needs: sever the umbilical cord linking party survival to a single name. If it
succeeds, it won’t just save itself; it might finally give Kenyans the gift of
a real, living political party.
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