Former Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga has come under heavy criticism from civil society groups and some opposition parties, for appearing to prop up President William Ruto’s government amid a youth-led uprising pushing for the latter’s resignation.
Mr Odinga, who is a candidate for the African Union Commission (AUC) chairmanship in February 2025, is believed to have negotiated a deal that saw four members of his ODM party take up key positions, including that of Finance minister, in President Ruto’s reconstituted Cabinet this week.
The move has triggered a fall-out in the opposition Azimio coalition, which backed Mr Odinga’s unsuccessful presidential bid in the 2022 elections.
Three key political parties in the coalition, including Wiper Democratic Movement of former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka, have disowned the deal, terming it a betrayal of the Gen Z movement behind the widespread protests across the country in the past one month.
With 83 Members of Parliament, ODM boasted half of Azimio’s parliamentary group before the defections.
President Ruto is also betting on the inclusion of ODM’s senior officials in Cabinet to decrease the momentum of the protests wave, especially in Nairobi and major towns like Mombasa and Kisumu where Mr Odinga’s party has a huge following.
It is not clear if the relatively low-key protests staged by civil society groups in Nairobi on Thursday had anything to do with Ruto’s unveiling of his so-called broad-based government the previous day.
Mr Odinga has since denied the existence of a formal power sharing deal between his party and the President’s ruling Kenya Kwanza coalition, insisting the four ODM members agreed to join the Cabinet in their individual capacities.
In a statement issued by his campaign secretariat on Thursday, Mr Odinga sought to clarify that his party was still pushing for a conditional national dialogue to address some of the concerns raised by the Gen Z movement behind the widespread protests across the country in the past one month, compensation of the victims of police brutality, the release of protesters from police custody and the prosecution of police officers captured on camera shooting peaceful protesters.
More than 50 people have been killed and hundreds injured during the protests that broke out on June 18 as a resistance to unpopular tax hikes contained in the Finance Bill 2024 but appeared to degenerate into an anti-government uprising in recent weeks.