Why ODM's conformist wing is desperate for a deal with UDA

Siaya Senator Oburu Odinga. [Caleb Kingwara, Standard]

There is nothing ideological behind the sudden urgency by a section of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), led by party leader Oburu Oginga, to secure a pre-election pact with the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) ahead of the 2027 General Election.

The move does not look like a strategy but rather panic management, particularly among beneficiaries of the broad-based arrangement within ODM.

This is fear-driven politics and it lays bare a conformist wing of the party that has quietly prioritised personal survival over the party’s values.

This is political fear, fear of losing elections, fear of irrelevance, and fear of life outside the political limelight without a political godfather, Raila Odinga.

For decades, a significant number of ODM politicians never won elections on the strength of their own political capital. They were often elected on Raila’s name alone, his sacrifices, his national stature, and his ability to mobilise voters across regions and social classes.

Raila carried the political cost of resistance while others harvested the rewards. Now that he is gone, the scaffolding that held many political careers together collapsed the day he was laid to rest on October 19, 2025.

State violence

ODM without Raila as its electoral centre of gravity is a frightening prospect for these politicians, and they know it.

Raila absorbed State violence, political isolation, and institutional sabotage. He framed national debates and kept the party relevant even in defeat.

In his absence from frontline electoral politics, they are now being forced to confront a brutal reality they have long avoided. On their own, many of them are electorally naked.

This is the unspoken truth behind the push for an early pre-election agreement with UDA. These politicians are not looking to negotiate with UDA on behalf of ODM supporters, reformist ideals, or democratic renewal. They are simply seeking to negotiate with fear in their stomachs and calculators in their hands.

They want certainty, early, written, and enforceable certainty about what is in it for them before voters get a chance to speak. They want guarantees before primaries, before mobilisation, before accountability. They want to know where they land, even if they lose.

This faction is attempting the complete removal of electoral risk by outsourcing survival to the State.

An early pact offers guaranteed accommodation, whether through nominations, appointments, protection, or negotiated seats.

Most importantly, it gives them certainty, the most valuable currency for politicians who no longer trust the ballot, or who have never won their seats through a competitive process, but rather they relied instead on their loyalty or proximity to Raila.

What makes this manoeuvre even more revealing is how little regard it shows for ODM’s ideological history.

ODM was not born as a vehicle for elite comfort. It was forged in resistance against authoritarianism, exclusion, corruption, and state violence. Its politics demanded sacrifice. People were jailed, beaten, teargassed, and killed. Raila bore that cost personally, repeatedly. The party’s identity was built on confrontation with power, not accommodation to it.

For the conformist wing now pushing for a pre-election deal ahead of the 2027 elections, ODM’s principles have become an inconvenience.

An early pact with UDA is therefore not just a political choice; it is a declaration that ODM’s oppositional DNA is expendable, that accountability can be traded for access, that reform can be postponed indefinitely, and that power matters more than purpose.

Necessary questions

This is why many ODM supporters are asking uncomfortable but necessary questions. Why is the party rushing into coalitions before consolidating its base?

Why can’t ODM first strengthen its grassroots structures, renew its leadership, articulate a post-Raila vision, and re-engage disillusioned supporters?

Why negotiate from a position of fear instead of rebuilding strength and bargaining power?

These supporters understand a basic political truth that coalitions entered from weakness do not empower; they subordinate.

Going into a pre-election pact as a weak partner will inevitably limit ODM’s bargaining power. The party will have little leverage over policy, candidate selection, or governance priorities.

After elections

History shows that junior partners in early coalitions often become expendable after elections, reduced to tokenism while carrying the burden of betrayal at home.

This makes the current posture even more ironic when placed in historical context.

During Raila’s tenure as ODM leader and presidential contender, it was other parties, including those that now dominate the ruling coalition, which actively sought partnerships with ODM.

ODM was the anchor. It was the kingmaker. Negotiations revolved around Raila, not the other way around.

Even sitting governments, from Mwai Kibaki to Uhuru Kenyatta to William Ruto, structured their political strategies around either neutralising or co-opting ODM because they understood the party’s electoral weight.

Those pushing hardest for an early pact are not thinking about ODM five or ten years from now. They are thinking about the next election and their own survival within it. 

They cannot imagine life outside power because they have never truly lived it. Opposition, to them, is not a democratic role but a personal failure.

This is why they are willing to hollow out the party rather than risk losing.

Why would they rather neutralise ODM than allow internal democracy and renewal to take place? Why are they prepared to cling to UDA’s table rather than face ODM voters without Raila as their shield? In trying to secure themselves, they risk destroying what remains of ODM’s moral authority. 

History will judge this moment harshly. When ODM stood at a crossroads between renewal and capitulation, some chose comfort over courage, deals over democracy, and certainty over conviction. In doing so, they are revealing exactly who they are.