Kenya opposition chief Raila Odinga under fire on State ‘deal’

Former Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga has come under heavy criticism from civil society groups and some opposition parties, for appearing to prop up President William Ruto’s government amid a youth-led uprising pushing for the latter’s resignation.

Mr. Odinga, who is a candidate for the African Union Commission (AUC) chairmanship in February 2025, is believed to have negotiated a deal that saw four members of his ODM party take up key positions, including that of Finance minister, in President Ruto’s reconstituted Cabinet this week.

The move has triggered a fall-out in the opposition Azimio coalition, which backed Mr Odinga’s unsuccessful presidential bid in the 2022 elections.

Three key political parties in the coalition, including the Wiper Democratic Movement of former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka, have disowned the deal, terming it a betrayal of the Gen Z movement behind the widespread protests across the country in the past month.

The wrangling over ODM members joining the Cabinet is set to further weaken the opposition in Parliament where President Ruto already enjoys control after luring more than 30 defectors to the government side.

With 83 Members of Parliament, ODM boasted half of Azimio’s parliamentary group before the defections.

President Ruto is also betting on the inclusion of ODM’s senior officials in Cabinet to decrease the momentum of the protest wave, especially in Nairobi and major towns like Mombasa and Kisumu where Mr Odinga’s party has a huge following.

It is not clear if the relatively low-key protests staged by civil society groups in Nairobi on Thursday had anything to do with Ruto’s unveiling of his so-called broad-based government the previous day.

Mr Odinga has since denied the existence of a formal power-sharing deal between his party and the President’s ruling Kenya Kwanza coalition, insisting the four ODM members agreed to join the Cabinet in their capacities.

In a statement issued by his campaign secretariat on Thursday, Mr. Odinga sought to clarify that his party was still pushing for a conditional national dialogue to address some of the concerns raised by the Gen Z movement behind the widespread protests across the country in the past one month, compensation of the victims of police brutality, the release of protesters from police custody and the prosecution of police officers captured on camera shooting peaceful protesters.

More than 50 people have been killed and hundreds injured during the protests that broke out on June 18 as a resistance to unpopular tax hikes contained in the Finance Bill 2024 but appeared to degenerate into an anti-government uprising in recent weeks.

Betrayal

The government has also been blamed for deploying special police squads to execute abductions and enforced disappearances after protesters over-ran Parliament on June 25.

President Ruto, while unveiling his second batch of Cabinet nominees on Wednesday, seemed to be open to meeting some of the conditions set by Odinga’s party, directing the police to release and drop charges against innocent protesters.

But critics have continued to accuse the opposition leader of betrayal, pointing to his flip-flopping on engagement with Ruto’s government in the past month.

All four persons nominated to the Dr Ruto Cabinet are close allies of Mr Odinga and top-ranking members of ODM, including the two deputy party leaders.

The veteran opposition leader, who himself led disruptive anti-government protests between March and July last year to challenge President Ruto’s legitimacy, first hinted about behind-the-scenes negotiations with his erstwhile political rival on July 9, when he witnessed the signing of a Bill proposing the reconstitution of the electoral commission.

It was the first public appearance together by the duo since the AU’s Africa Fertiliser and Soil Health Summit in May in Nairobi where President Ruto was seen campaigning for Mr Odinga’s candidature for the AUC chairmanship.

Last week, Odinga was reported to have warned of possible dire consequences for the country in the event President Ruto was forced to resign, drawing parallels to the counterrevolution in Egypt after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

“...Ruto must go’ cannot be an end. It’s at times of crisis like this that a country needs to talk. We are not doing it to save Ruto. We are doing it to save Kenya. Generals don’t have teargas. They have bullets,” he was quoted saying during a parliamentary group meeting.

While the 79-year-old opposition leader has taken the flak at home for his perceived role in trying to derail the pro-democracy movement against the Ruto government, his AU campaign secretariat sees his intervention as enhancing his image as a prospective African top diplomat, with the ability to help restore stability in a country facing political turmoil.