NAIROBI, Kenya- Kisumu Woman Representative Ruth Odinga has rejected calls for unconditional support for President William Ruto, saying ODM will not enter a coalition without a written, legally binding agreement.
In a statement responding to remarks attributed to Interior Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo, Odinga also pushed back against portraying ODM as a Luo party.
“ODM is a national political party with representation across the counties,” she said, citing Western, Coast and Turkana among its strongholds.
“Any attempt to reduce ODM to a Luo party is therefore troubling, and one reads bad faith into it,” she added.
Omollo recently urged political leaders not to demand formal agreements or impose conditions on support for Ruto ahead of the 2027 election.
He said Luo Nyanza should back the President without conditions.
“It would be very unfortunate if Luos now want a written agreement with Ruto,” he said.
The remarks come as ODM leaders push for a formal pre-election arrangement with UDA, including a power-sharing framework.
Some have called for a 50-50 arrangement and for the Deputy President’s position to be reserved for ODM.
Ruth Odinga cites political history and the law
Odinga argued that Kenya’s history shows why political agreements must be formal and enforceable.
She cited the Waki Commission’s report on the 2007–2008 post-election violence, saying it recorded how unmet political understandings, including a 2002 NARC memorandum of understanding, contributed to grievances.
“MoUs have become such a challenge in Kenyan politics that they are jokingly referred to as ‘memoranda without implementation’,” she said, adding that complaints about unfulfilled political arrangements have persisted across regions.
She pointed to the Political Parties Act as setting out the requirements for coalitions. The law says parties forming a coalition must deposit their agreement with the Registrar of Political Parties.
Its Third Schedule requires the agreement to be written and to address matters including the coalition’s structure, nomination rules, decision-making, dispute resolution and dissolution.
Odinga said ODM had entered previous alliances, including CORD in 2013, NASA in 2017 and Azimio in 2022, while retaining its identity and principles.
“We never abandoned our values, objectives or ideology as a party,” she said.
“Certainly, none of these was a merger in which we were asked to fold our party into others.”
Her position, she said, is that ODM remains open to coalition-building but will not join an arrangement without a binding legal agreement.
“The party retains its identity and uniqueness,” she said.
“Anything short of that would be unacceptable to the great masses of the party.”
