Sifuna Declares ODM-UDA Deal Dead

Orange Democratic Movement Secretary General Edwin Sifuna has dramatically declared the Memorandum of Understanding between his party and the ruling United Democratic Alliance null and void, citing the recent death of teacher and blogger Albert Ojwang in police custody as the final straw that broke the political détente.

In a hard-hitting interview on a local television Tuesday night, the outspoken Nairobi Senator delivered what amounts to a political obituary for the March 7 agreement signed between President William Ruto and ODM leader Raila Odinga at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre.

The pact, originally designed to calm political tensions and address Kenya’s socio-economic challenges, has become a casualty of what Sifuna describes as the government’s continued bad faith.

“On the day that Albert Ojwang dies in a police cell, to me this agreement is dead. Because it doesn’t matter what else you do, Albert will not be able to enjoy that,” Sifuna stated with characteristic bluntness.

The ODM Secretary General revealed that his opposition to the agreement ran deeper than recent events, admitting he had been a vocal dissenter from the very beginning.

He painted a picture of internal party tensions, describing how he had warned his colleagues against entering into what he saw as a fundamentally flawed arrangement with an untrustworthy partner.

“I am on record having advised the party against doing this MoU with UDA, and we still went ahead and entered that MoU, but the beauty is that we’re proven right every day,” Sifuna explained.

His critique of the Ruto administration went beyond mere policy disagreements, touching on what he characterized as a cynical public relations exercise.

According to Sifuna, the Kenya Kwanza government was never genuinely interested in the substantive provisions of the agreement, viewing it instead as a convenient prop for political theater.

“They wanted a document that they could then go and run a PR campaign around and say we’re together,” he observed, describing how the government had deliberately misrepresented the nature of the agreement to suggest a coalition between the two parties when no such arrangement existed.

The Senator’s analysis of the MoU’s failure centered on two fundamental pillars that he said had justified the original agreement.

The first was the preservation of human life, particularly in the wake of the deadly Gen Z protests that had rocked the country.

The second was the sustenance of Kenya’s democratic institutions, ensuring political stability through to the 2027 elections.

While acknowledging that democratic processes remain intact, Sifuna argued that the continued loss of life had fatally undermined the moral foundation of the agreement. His assessment was stark in its simplicity: President Ruto was receiving his end of the bargain through political stability, but ordinary Kenyans continued to pay with their lives.

The practical implications of Sifuna’s declaration became clear when he revealed his refusal to participate in a recently proposed ODM committee tasked with reviewing the MoU’s implementation. His reasoning was characteristically direct and tinged with dark humor.

“Recently, we had another meeting and there was a proposal to have a team to review the implementation of this MoU. I have asked respectfully that I be left out of that team because I have already declared this MoU dead. I am not a mortician,” he stated, drawing a line between political negotiation and what he saw as futile attempts to revive a corpse.

The death of Albert Ojwang appears to have crystallized long-simmering frustrations within ODM about the agreement’s effectiveness. For Sifuna, it represented not just another casualty of state violence, but a symbol of the government’s fundamental inability or unwillingness to honor its commitments to protecting citizens’ lives.

His pronouncement comes at a delicate time for Kenyan politics, with the country still grappling with the aftermath of widespread protests and ongoing tensions between civil society and state security forces. The original MoU had included provisions for compensating protest victims and granting amnesty to those charged during peaceful demonstrations, commitments that Sifuna now views as hollow promises.

The broader implications of Sifuna’s stance extend beyond the immediate political theater to questions about the nature of political agreements in Kenya’s fractured democracy. His critique suggests a fundamental skepticism about whether formal political pacts can survive the realities of governance when trust between parties has eroded.

As one of ODM’s most prominent voices and a skilled political communicator, Sifuna’s declaration carries weight beyond his individual opinion. It signals potential fractures within the opposition movement and raises questions about the sustainability of any political cooperation between ODM and the ruling party.

The challenge now facing both parties is whether the MoU can survive such pointed criticism from within ODM’s own ranks, or whether Sifuna’s dramatic pronouncement will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, marking the end of what was already a fragile political arrangement born out of necessity rather than genuine partnership.