By The Weekly Vision Reporter
For a retreat billed as a show of unity, the three-day Broad-Based Government gathering at Lake Naivasha Resort ended up exposing precisely the fault line it was meant to paper over- who gets to be President William Ruto’s running mate in 2027, and whether Deputy President Kithure Kindiki still has a seat at the table he currently occupies.
By the time the retreat closed on Monday, ODM and Kenya Kwanza had announced a formal coalition and a 10-member joint team to draft a common 2027 manifesto, five nominees apiece, with the parties’ executive directors sitting in an ex-officio capacity. It was billed as a landmark moment of political consolidation. But the announcement did little to settle the far more troubling question that had dominated the sessions leading up to it- ODM’s insistence that it, not UDA, should produce the deputy presidential candidate.
The party’s position has hardened steadily over recent weeks, articulated most forcefully by ODM Deputy Party Leader and Kisii Governor Simba Arati. Speaking at the party’s Nairobi headquarters in late July, Arati laid out the arithmetic bluntly when he said, “We have told them (UDA) it should be 50-50. If Ruto is the presidential candidate, then the Deputy President should come from our side.” He went further at a separate gathering, framing it as a floor rather than an opening bid, “Our party ODM and UDA, we will go 50-50, no shortcut about it. Without that, no story.”
The demand extends well beyond the deputy presidency. ODM is understood to be pushing for at least 11 of the 22 Cabinet Secretary positions, roughly half of Kenya’s diplomatic postings, and a share of parliamentary leadership roles including the Speakership. ODM Secretary-General Junet Mohamed has named Cooperatives CS Wycliffe Oparanya as the party’s likely preferred candidate for the DP slot, citing his standing in Western Kenya, though he was careful to leave the door open for others. “We also have our party leader, we cannot wish him away, he can also want to fill the position.” Mining CS Ali Hassan Joho, Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga and ODM leader Oburu Oginga himself have also been floated.
Oburu has since confirmed his own interest directly, saying, ODM’s support for Ruto’s re-election is not in question but that “all other positions, including the DP slot, remain negotiable.”
The most politically sensitive moment came when Arati raised the demand in a session attended by both Ruto and Kindiki. According to Gatundu South MP Gabriel Kagombe, who was present, the intervention visibly unsettled Mt Kenya legislators in the room. Kagombe recounted the moment pointedly, “Imagine the deputy president seated there and the governor for Kisii would ask that the deputy president no longer serves.”
He described the episode as symptomatic of a deeper grievance- that Mt Kenya MPs who backed Ruto from the outset are now being asked to accept a diminished role. “We must be represented at the table. We cannot be giving our support and we are not at the table,” he said, adding a warning that will carry weight with UDA strategists heading into 2027, “The bare minimum is that we get what we want and if we don’t, then we call it quits.”
Reports of MPs walking out of the session during Arati’s remarks have circulated in several accounts of the retreat, though the scale and duration of the walkout have not been independently and uniformly confirmed. What is not in dispute is that the exchange allegedly happened in Ruto’s presence, and that it has left Mt Kenya’s UDA bloc rattled.
Kindiki has not been passive, speaking in his home region, he dismissed suggestions that his office was under threat, taking a pointed swipe at his predecessor in the process, “I am confident that in every corner of Mt Kenya region, there is a project associated with me. The same cannot be said of Gachagua, who is busy misleading you.” Mt Kenya East MPs have echoed that defiance, with one legislator, Munene, saying ODM’s push should be resisted outright, “We will defend Kindiki from within the government at all costs. We have no fear.”
Polling has, for now, worked in Kindiki’s favour. A recent Infotrak survey placed him well ahead of other named contenders for the DP slot, at 34 per cent support, against 11 per cent for Wanga and 5 per cent for Oburu, though more than a third of respondents remained undecided, leaving plenty of room for the contest to shift. No figure stands to gain more from a Kindiki-ODM rupture than the man Kindiki replaced. Rigathi Gachagua, now leading the Democracy for the Citizens Party, has run a deliberately two-handed strategy- publicly warning Ruto’s allies against attacking Kindiki while simultaneously working to peel away Mt Kenya’s political loyalty for himself. “As I issue this directive, I want to advise Prof Kindiki as one of our own. Be careful, my brother.
The competition around your seat is a threat to your life. I was there. I know,” Gachagua said at his Nyeri home in July, an olive branch that doubled as a reminder of his own claim to the region’s political leadership.
Days later, in Meru, he was accusing Ruto’s allies of a deliberate campaign to frustrate Kindiki out of office, invoking his own removal as the template, “He took my position.” And by early August, the tone had curdled further, with Gachagua bluntly rejecting any suggestion of shared political brotherhood with the man who succeeded him- “So wewe hata kama umepata matatizo huko kwa Ruto, ukae huko. Hapana ita mimi ndugu yako”.
Gachagua’s DCP has already demonstrated it can convert this messaging into votes- its candidate won the Ol Kalou parliamentary by-election by a margin of nearly 30,000 votes over UDA’s contender, a result that undercut Kindiki’s argument that Mt Kenya remains solidly behind the government. Every additional week that ODM’s demand for the DP slot stays unresolved gives Gachagua fresh material to argue that Mt Kenya’s loyalty to Kenya Kwanza is being taken for granted, and fresh ground to build a rival opposition coalition ahead of 2027.
The joint manifesto committee now has roughly a month, by most accounts of the retreat’s timeline, to produce a framework both sides can sell to their bases. Whether that document resolves the deputy presidency question, or simply defers it to a second, thornier round of talks on the coalition’s power-sharing architecture, will do more to shape the contours of the 2027 race than almost anything said on a campaign platform between now and then.
