ODM After Raila Odinga: Oburu, Three Factions and a Pact With UDA

Raila Odinga died on 15 October 2025 in India. He had led the Orange Democratic Movement for its entire existence and been the organising fact of Kenyan opposition politics for a generation.

Less than a year later, ODM is in a working arrangement with the government it spent two decades opposing, led by Raila's brother, and split three ways about whether either of those things is right.

The succession

Oburu Oginga was appointed acting party leader within about a month of his brother's death, and formally confirmed as party leader at a Special Delegates Conference in March 2026. The same process ratified a leadership team including Gladys Wanga, with Rarieda MP Otiende Amollo and Turkana South MP Ariko Namoit as vice chairpersons and Rosa Buyu as Secretary of Political Affairs. Others were removed.

The criticism of that process is specific rather than vague. Oburu held no senior National Executive Council position at the time of his appointment, and critics argue the party bypassed the three deputy party leaders who should have acted in the interim. Siaya Governor James Orengo has gone further, publicly accusing party figures of moving toward the government while Raila's body was still in India.

The three factions

Kenyan analysts describe the split roughly this way:

The leadership bloc, around Oburu and Wanga, arguing that a party without its founder needs to be inside government to protect its constituencies and remain relevant.

The legitimacy sceptics, who see the succession as rushed and Oburu as an appointment rather than a choice.

The opposition-continuity bloc, which holds that a party defined by opposition cannot become a governing partner and remain the same thing. Edwin Sifuna's removal as Secretary-General was, in substance, this argument losing.

The UDA arrangement

President Ruto has said publicly that the UDA–ODM pact "is here to stay". The two sides have moved toward formalising it, and Ruto and Oburu have jointly summoned allied governors and MPs to plan for 2027.

ODM's price, according to reporting through 2026, is the deputy president position — a demand that puts the current holder, KithKithure Kindikito the middle of a negotiation he has said he does not intend to lose.

Why this is the most consequential thing in Kenyan politics right now

Because of where ODM's votes are.

Nyanza and Western have historically delivered enormous, concentrated margins to ODM. If those margins move to a Ruto ticket, the arithmetic of a first-round presidential win changes completely. If they fracture — some to the pact, some to Sifuna's Linda Mwananchi, some staying home — the picture is different again.

The Homa Bay rally in August 2026 was a live test of exactly that, which is why it drew both crowds and disruption. We wrote about it separately in the Linda Mwananchi piece.

What an ODM aspirant should be doing

Uncomfortable but true: your party's national posture is a variable you do not control, and it may change twice before nominations.

What you control is whether your support survives that change. Concretely:

• Know your own numbers. Registered voters per station in your ward, and how many households your team has actually spoken to.
• Recruit agents in your own name. If you rely on the party to supply agents and the party's local structure fractures, you have no coverage.
• Keep your volunteer records yours. A list in a party office is not your list.

That is not cynicism about parties. It is what a decade of Kenyan realignments should have taught every aspirant, and it is the reason BallotWinners is built around the candidate's own structure rather than the party's.