Last week in Naivasha, Kenya’s largest political parties – the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) of Kenya Kwanza – took the first significant step towards creating a political juggernaut for the 2027 elections. The coalition, or merger, as the case may be, could create the largest party in Kenya.

In this piece, I want to explore why the marriage between President William Ruto’s UDA and the late Raila Odinga’s ODM is likely to transform Kenya’s political landscape for decades. The confab was attended by at least 253 MPs out of 348 and 48 senators. That’s more than 70 per cent of all legislators. This gargantuan number should make any political opponent with a noggin quake in their boots.

Kenya’s politics is still largely primordial, if not primaeval. By this I mean Kenya’s politics is anchored in the call of the blood – that ancestry has more importance than ideology. Kenyan voters generally clutch their mothers’ skirts to divine how they will vote every five years. We are yet to break the curse of ethnicity and identity in our politics.

We vote with our hearts, not our heads. That’s why Kenya has been unable to break the gremlins of the Third World. Our political parties are still anchored in the soil of their leaders. We need to ask this question – is Mr Odinga’s quest to establish a truly national party to be realised in the ODM-UDA merger?

The fragmentation of our political landscape will never stop until we have genuine national political parties that truly cut across ethnic sectarianism. In my view, ODM is the first party in the age of political pluralism to cut across most ethnic groups, except among the Agikuyu. Let’s remember the 2007 election – which was stolen from Mr Odinga – when ODM had a commanding base among the Kalenjin.

Social democratic ethos

The putative coalition between ODM and UDA today closely mimics the 2007 ODM in key respects. What’s different is that the emerging ODM-UDA pact is more ideologically driven. UDA’s populist politics closely mirror ODM’s social democratic ethos. What started out as political concubinage between the two is turning out to be political convivialism.

Let me use my crystal ball to divine for you what I see ahead of the ODM-UDA dalliance. First, the parties will have to decide whether they will be a coalition or become a single party. To make this hard choice, they must think about what the elites in both parties want. But there’s a prior question they must answer – can Kenya really become a First World country if its political formations continue to be anchored in the tribe? It’s true elections in Kenya are won, or lost, on ethnic fragmentation and regional divisionism. Do the top thinkers in the ODM-UDA behemoth want to foreswear ethnicity as the basis of organisation? Do they want to hold onto their ethnic bases and use that as a wedge for elite bargaining?

In my view, speaking as a student of constitutionalism, I think ODM and UDA should try to cure the tumour of tribalism in Kenya’s politics. Regional political parties do nothing but silo ethnic groups in their cocoons and retard the national project. That’s why Raila Odinga worked so hard to de-ethnicise ODM, even though it still retained a large base in his native Luo Nyanza. But the man himself inspired almost maniacal zeal among citizens of all ethnic stripes. I remember how in 2018 he was received like the ayatollah in Kitui Town, far away from the shores of Lake Victoria. Wiper’s Kalonzo Musyoka, the political supremo in Ukambani, was left to behold the spectacle like a commoner in his own backyard.

Burial of ethnicity

That’s why the first riddle for ODM and UDA to resolve is whether to form a coalition or a single political party and invite others to join. In Naivasha, as I listened to the proceedings, I realised that, combined into one, the two can be what the doctor ordered to start the burial of ethnicity in our politics. I say this knowing that politics is the art of the impossible.

But UDA and ODM would be better advised to become the beachhead for tribelessness in Kenya’s politics. It won’t be easy – and may not happen – but it’s a charge the leaders of the two formations must seriously consider. Otherwise, tribalism is the biggest cancer in our politics.

Naivasha was a marvel to behold. In the closing stanza of the ODM-UDA courtship, the ODM party leader, Dr Oburu Oginga, took the stage with dramatic flair.

Summoning the genius of his late father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, and his indomitable brother, Raila, Dr Oginga showed why the Odingas have been a family of destiny. President Ruto is a tough act to follow, but Dr Oginga’s performance was one for the ages.

His everyman mien and wisdom – not to mention rhetorical wizardry – showed why the UDA-ODM merger has no equal.

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Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York. @makaumutua.