Wamuzi News Ke
An entirely new storm has broken out in the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) as the internal rift that has gotten deeper has bared the incendiary allegations that the 2022 presidential bid of the then party leader Raila Odinga was intentionally crippled from inside.
The scandalous claims, coming in the middle of fierce infighting over ODM’s future, have drastically altered the scenario of the opposition in Kenya.
The senior party members who were embroiled in a heated argument this week dragged along the accusations that the 2022 campaign operation was not only mismanaged but also deliberately sabotaged by some powerful insiders.
The members of the faction that is supporting Siaya Senator Oburu Oginga and the controversial large-scale cooperation with President William Ruto’s administration by the source of the information say primarily the nature of the strategy, command control, and financial support led to the downfall of Odinga.
The internal scandal exposes that the “command center” of the campaign had turned into a warzone of competing interests, with the groups accusing each other over who had the power to control the resources that were of utmost importance and who had the right to make decisions on the strategies to be taken.
Insiders within the party have it that money that was meant for agents to go out, mobilization at the grassroots, and the provision of essential logistical support was either mishandled or diverted, thus severely crippling ODM’s political machinery at the grassroots during key periods of the election cycle.
The aforementioned accusations mirror a similar conflict that has become public in the last few days. Some ODM officials have claimed that election fund agents were financed through narrow channels that even included the late former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s associates.
The critics argue that such an untransparent manner of overseeing financial resources left the major areas without proper agent representation, thus impairing the counting and misrepresentation of votes and elections—such claims are denied by the accused persons.
The revelations came at a time when the party’s Secretary-General Edwin Sifuna and other leaders had differing views over ODM’s position on the all-inclusive government, which has been a sign of the party’s wider identity crisis.
Analysts suggest that the bringing to light of the alleged wrongdoing from 2022 will only serve to grow the division among the parties just when ODM is uniting for the 2027 election battle.
There are still some party bigwigs who argue that the accusations are just a part of the political rivalry, while on the other hand, the unfiltered nature of the allegations has set the tone for one of the most severe unveilings of the internal conflict in ODM’s past.
Both factions are getting ready for the party’s upcoming discussions; thus, the rumors generated by the accusations are likely to last in this country’s political dialogue throughout the coming months.
