How power has changed ODM leaders

For years, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) was more than a political party. To many Kenyans, it represented a political tradition built around the defence of human dignity, constitutionalism, social justice and the right of ordinary citizens to challenge those in power.

Under the late Raila Odinga, ODM became synonymous with opposition politics that was often uncomfortable, confrontational and uncompromising. When governments were accused of abusing power, ODM was expected to be among the first political formations to raise its voice.

That history is now coming under scrutiny. The latest trigger is the language coming from some of the party’s senior figures, particularly Kisii Governor and ODM Deputy Party Leader Simba Arati, whose remarks this week have reopened an uncomfortable question: What exactly does ODM stand for now that it is part of the broad-based arrangement with President William Ruto?

Speaking at the ODM headquarters in Nairobi on Tuesday, Arati challenged the argument that deaths during the Ruto administration should be used as a reason to reject the President’s bid for a second term.

“They claim that people have died under Ruto’s government. Tell me, which government has not killed Kenyans? In fact, Uhuru’s government killed very many people,” Arati said.

He went further, comparing the current administration with that of former President Uhuru Kenyatta.

“When Raila was returning to the country, people were being killed like flies from the airport to town. I saw one being killed and put on my car's bonnet,” he said.

Arati also argued that President Ruto has shown greater tolerance than his predecessor, saying that while Ruto is abused regularly without responding in the same manner, insulting Uhuru would have attracted a much harsher state response.

The greater distinction is that Arati did not say that killings were acceptable. He later insisted that ODM condemned killings and abductions under every administration and that they should end.

But politics is not only about what a politician says after making a controversial argument. It is also about the political meaning of the argument itself.

That is where Arati’s words become difficult for a party whose history was built around challenging the excesses of government.

The question is not whether previous governments were innocent. They were not. Nor is it whether Kenyans were killed during previous administrations. They were.

The question is whether the failures of one government can ever become a defence for the failures of another.

If citizens died under Uhuru Kenyatta, that should be investigated. If citizens died under Ruto, those cases should equally be investigated. One wrong does not cancel another.

A government cannot be allowed to answer accusations against itself by pointing at its predecessor and saying: They also did it.

Every administration must carry the weight of its own record.

This is precisely where the change in ODM’s political language becomes interesting.

For decades, the party positioned itself as an external watchdog of government. Its politicians could condemn the government without having to worry that their criticism would undermine their own side because they were, by definition, on the other side.

That has changed. ODM is now part of the broad-based arrangement. Its leaders sit close to the centre of power. The political incentives have therefore changed, and so has the language.

Arati’s remarks cannot be divorced from that new political reality. Neither can the controversial remarks made in July by ODM leader Oburu Oginga.

While at State House during the signing into law of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill, Oburu urged President Ruto to be more decisive, arguing that Kenya sometimes needed what he called “benevolent dictatorship” to push through difficult decisions.

“I encouraged the President to occasionally employ a level of ‘benevolent dictatorship’ to stand firm, cut through the political noise, and make the hard, bold decisions necessary to achieve the absolute best for all Kenyans,” Oburu said.

The remarks caused an uproar because of the obvious contradiction they appeared to create with the democratic tradition associated with ODM and, more broadly, with the political legacy of Raila Odinga.

Oburu later defended himself, insisting that critics had misunderstood the phrase and that he was not advocating authoritarian rule. He argued that “benevolent” was the important part of the phrase and pointed to Singapore as an example of decisive leadership.

The controversy remains important because of the timing. The same political tradition that once warned against unchecked state power was now telling the person occupying State House that perhaps there was “too much democracy” and that a little benevolent dictatorship could help things move.

That does not automatically mean ODM has abandoned democracy, but it does show how dramatically its political language has shifted.

Perhaps this is the bigger story: Has power changed the way ODM sees power?

Political risk analyst Dismas Mokua sees the shift less as an ideological conversion and more as political pragmatism.

“ODM is playing pragmatic politics,” Mokua argues. According to him, the party entered the broad-based arrangement after the 2024 Gen Z protests, and its current defence of President Ruto and calls for firmness in government are tactical moves designed to protect the coalition and isolate former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

In Mokua’s reading, the departure of Raila Odinga created a political vacuum that Gachagua has attempted to occupy, particularly among Kenyans looking for an alternative political centre.

ODM therefore has a strategic interest in keeping Gachagua away from the political space it considers its own.

But pragmatism comes with a price.

“ODM must defend the broad-based arrangement to the hilt and this has ideological costs,” Mokua says.

That may be the most important sentence in understanding the party’s current predicament.

Under Raila, ODM’s reputation was built partly on what happened outside government. The party could organise demonstrations, demand investigations, call for resignations and mobilise citizens against policies it considered oppressive.

Today, the party cannot comfortably do all those things against an administration in which it is itself a partner.

As Mokua puts it, “ODM cannot demonstrate in the streets against itself.”

That creates a strange political equation. When ODM was in opposition, the government was the target. Now that ODM is part of the broad-based arrangement, criticism of government can easily become criticism of the arrangement itself.

That explains why some national issues that would previously have attracted the party’s loudest condemnation can now be framed as matters to be handled internally.

The street has effectively been replaced by the boardroom, and that is where the ideological cost begins.

Mokua argues that ODM is “no longer a vicious external watchdog but a willing partner with both pecuniary and political interests.”

The watchdog, in his view, has moved from the public arena to State House boardrooms.

There is nothing inherently wrong with political parties changing strategy. Politics is not a religion. Parties form alliances, negotiate power and change positions as circumstances change, but parties also have memories.

ODM built its identity around particular struggles. Its supporters were taught to believe that human rights, constitutionalism and social justice were not negotiable depending on who occupied State House.

That is why the Arati statement is likely to resonate beyond the immediate political fight with Gachagua.

It raises a deeper question about whether state atrocities have now become a matter of which side of the political divide one occupies.

When you are in opposition, a death allegedly caused by state security agencies is a national outrage. When you are close to government, does the same death become a historical comparison?

If that is where politics has reached, then Kenyans have a right to be uncomfortable because the standard should not change with political alliances.

Ruto’s administration should be judged on its own record. Uhuru’s administration should be judged on its own record. Mwai Kibaki’s administration should be judged on its own record. And any administration that comes after Ruto should face the same scrutiny.

Human rights cannot be partisan. You cannot tell the family of a person who died that their loss is less important because another Kenyan died under a previous government.

You cannot answer a question about today’s injustice by producing yesterday’s injustice. That is what makes whataboutism so dangerous in politics. It turns accountability into a competition over who did worse. And once that happens, nobody is held responsible.

Mokua believes ODM now finds itself in an almost impossible position.

“The party is trying to handle liver using one hand,” he says, describing a party expected to defend the broad-based administration while simultaneously maintaining enough distance to criticise it. That is a difficult political balancing act.

President Ruto remains the centre of the Kenya Kwanza administration, while ODM is a partner within the broad-based arrangement. At the same time, ODM must convince its traditional supporters that it has not abandoned the values that made them identify with the party in the first place.

Mokua’s argument is that ODM therefore needs a “street management strategy” capable of managing public expectations.

That may be the party’s biggest challenge going into 2027 because the danger is not necessarily that ODM has joined government.

The danger is that in defending government, it could slowly lose the moral language that made people believe it was different from government.

Raila’s ODM could stand outside State House and tell those inside that they were wrong. Today’s ODM has to look inside State House while convincing those outside that it has not forgotten them.

That is a very different political position, and perhaps that is why Arati’s remarks have struck such a nerve.

The issue is not simply Simba Arati defending William Ruto. Politicians defend allies every day. The issue is the argument used to do so.

“Which government has not killed Kenyans?”

That question may be politically useful, but morally it is dangerous because the answer should never be that killings are inevitable.

The answer should be that no government should kill Kenyans, and every government must answer for those who die under its watch.

That was part of the political tradition many Kenyans associated with ODM, but today, the party appears to be learning the uncomfortable lesson of power: the closer you move to government, the harder it becomes to speak like its watchdog.