Orange gone bad: Raila's behemoth teetering on the brink of death

It may be too soon to write the obituary of Raila Odinga’s party, yet the dynamics tease us with the possibility that the moment is close. For there was a time when the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) did not have to explain itself. Not anymore. 

Raila’s party stood for something. Even in the seasons when it was imperfect or even inconsistent, there was little doubt that it professed belief in something. Even when it did not always demonstrate that belief, it still knew that it had one. 

ODM is today on the edge of things. The Orange party is a hollowed-out ideological outfit, tittering on the edges of compromise and exhaustion. It has ruptured and strayed away from the founding doctrine. If not dead, it is gravitating towards ideological death. The undertakers are the caretakers Raila left behind when he died in October last year. 

But how has ODM lost the plot? The caretakers, turned undertakers, today speak of power. They want power; they cannot do without power. And they have sucked into the quest the entire Odinga family, including the grand matron and the fledglings.

President William Ruto, who was there at the birth of the party in 2006, understands the psychology of access. In the wake of Raila’s sudden and mysterious death, Ruto has pulled the rabbit of power out of the bag. It is working wonders. But, above all, it is killing the active ingredient that made ODM tick. 

When it came into existence as a mass movement against a bad constitutional moment in 2005, what would become the future ODM Party was a resistance entity. It was not merely an electoral machine. It was a movement before it became a party; a votary of reform and of constitutional struggle. 

It is instructive that Raila, Najib Balala, and Kalonzo Musyoka, among ODM’s leading lights in 2005, were in the Mwai Kibaki Cabinet at the time. They sacrificed positions of power and privilege in government to fight for reform and good governance. They chose constitutionalism over incumbency. They were insiders who rejected the Kibaki terms of power. 

Friday’s political activities spoke of two ODMs. Like the perennial warring antagonists in South Sudan, we now have ODM in Government (ODM-IG), and ODM in the Opposition (ODM-IO). Edwin Sifuna’s ODM-IO still speaks the language of justice and principles, not just votes.

Oburu Oginga’s ODM-IG speaks of raw power. It speaks of being in government as its ultimate and only goal. It is now set to enter into dialogue with Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) to negotiate an elite power pact. There are no hard and firm principles to be discussed. Just who gets what. 

Ideological clarity in ODM-IG is not just gone; it is dead. We can write its obituary. Of course, ODM-IG still commands crowds. It still has deep roots across regions, and especially in Luo Nyanza. It also still carries some of the symbolic weight Raila had. But it lacks the ideals he intrinsically interwoven into the party’s identity. So, even if the movement lives, is the idea still alive? 

In 1972, Wole Soyinka disturbingly woke up Africa’s consciousness to spiritual and moral death. “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny," Soyinka wrote in his prison memoir of that year. He called our attention to the personal, moral, and institutional decay that resides in silence or apathy, during oppression and bad rule. Even those who mobilize huge crowds are often, at the same time, morally and spiritually dead. 

The goings-on in ODM-IG have brought this tension into sharp focus. The removal of Godfrey Osotsi as one of the three deputy party leaders, and the attempted removal of Edwin Sifuna by Oburu and figures associated with him, is not just an internal administrative matter. It was a moment of revelation, a veritable political epiphany.

Sifuna, whatever we may think of his style, represents a certain voice within the original ODM. This is the combative, unapologetic, oppositional voice. It is the voice that defined ODM at its apogee. His defiance in Busia, Kitengela, Kakamega, and Narok, cheered on by animated crowds, has not been simply personal bravado. It taps into something deeper: a lingering expectation that ODM should still speak with that old fire.

The response from Oburu, however, suggests a different direction. It is far from a cautious, measured, or more accommodating voice. It is a fawning, compromising, and ideologically crippled voice. This is where the real story about Raila’s party lies.

On one side is an emerging establishment wing. It is comfortable operating within any system, provided that the system is in power. Accordingly, ODM-IG has access to power, networks, and resources. It understands the language of compromise, of quiet deals, and staying close to the centre of the matter, regardless that it may reek. 

On the other side, ODM-IO is a less resourced but more ideologically assertive entity. It insists, quite loudly, that Raila’s party must remain true to its founding spirit. It draws energy from younger leaders, urban audiences, and those who still want politics to mean something more than transactions.

Neither side is entirely new. What is new is how clearly the divide is now exposed. And it raises an uncomfortable question. Can a party survive when it is no longer sure what it stands for? The challenge for ODM-IG is not as simple as it wants to appear. Yes, ODM-IG has proximity to the State House. Yes, it can draw on the machinery of the state, both directly and indirectly. And yes, in a political culture where voters often respond to immediate material incentives, this is no small advantage.

But does it come at a cost? A party that leans too heavily on access and state patronage risks losing its voice. It may win compliance, but it struggles to inspire loyalty. It becomes efficient where money counts, but it is soon forgotten. It is present, but not compelling. For a party whose greatest strength was always its ability to stir emotion and conviction, that is a dangerous trade. That is where ODM-IG is. 

Regrettably, the alternative is not straightforward either. ODM-IO faces a different kind of dilemma. Yes, it has the rhetoric. Yes, it has the energy. And yes, it also has the crowds, as the rallies have shown, so far. But does it lack the one thing that turns political excitement into electoral success, that is to say, structure? I have previously told ODM-IO in these pages that crowds do not vote. Structures do.

Winning elections in Kenya still requires organisation at the most granular level. There must be a clear structure and organisation with ward agents, local networks, resources to move people; and clear relevant messages. This calls for the quiet, unglamorous work of building a political machine. That is not something that can be improvised on the strength of a few fiery speeches or trending hashtags. This is the trap that ODM-IO could walk into, unless the leaders know something we don’t know.