Cracks Emerge in Ruto’s Broad-Based Government Ahead of 2027
August 2026
President William Ruto’s broad-based government, the political arrangement joining his United Democratic Alliance (UDA) with Oburu Oginga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), is showing fresh strain less than a year before Kenya returns to the polls. Legislators from both parties clashed at a closed-door retreat in Naivasha over a power-sharing agreement that has still not been finalised, as The Africa Report first reported.
The outlet’s report notes that legislators allied to UDA and ODM are already clashing over a yet-to-be-formulated power-sharing agreement, raising the question of whether the coalition can hold together through the next election cycle.
Naivasha Retreat Tensions
The retreat opened on Monday, August 10, 2026, and ran for three days, bringing together members of parliament from UDA and ODM to plot a joint route to 2027, per People Daily’s account. More than 300 leaders from UDA, ODM and allied parties attended the session, KBC reported.
Gatundu South MP Gabriel Kangombe picked up on the friction early, The Africa Report’s piece says. During the closed-door session, organisers asked Homa Bay County Women Representative Joyce Osogo, popularly known as Bensuda, to lead the assembled legislators, governors and ministers in an opening prayer. Kangombe called the choice telling, hinting at the informal positioning already playing out between the two camps.
Power-Sharing Sticking Points
At the heart of the standoff is how much of government ODM should control in return for backing Ruto’s re-election. ODM has been pushing for a 50-50 split of government positions, along with the deputy president’s seat, as part of any pre-2027 electoral pact with UDA, an earlier Africa Report piece on Mt Kenya politics noted.
Organisers hoped the Naivasha retreat would narrow that gap by setting up a joint negotiating team of five representatives from each party to work out the finer details of a formal coalition agreement, People Daily’s report adds. No signed pact had emerged by the close of the retreat, leaving the power-sharing question open heading into the final stretch before 2027.
Ruto And Oburu Respond
Ruto used his opening remarks to press both sides not to squander the alliance, framing the stakes in blunt terms. “The alternative is difficult to fathom,” he told delegates, according to KBC’s coverage of the retreat.
Oburu Oginga, ODM’s party leader, defended working with Kenya Kwanza at the same gathering and pushed back against members still unsure about the tie-up. “If you have an issue, raise it honestly,” he said, in a piece carried by Kenyan Post. Oburu separately dismissed suggestions that UDA could absorb ODM, insisting the party joined the arrangement from a position of strength and would keep its own identity within the coalition, the Star’s report adds.
Why It Matters For 2027
The tension inside the ruling alliance carries extra weight because ODM has been navigating life after its founder. Raila Odinga, the party’s long-time leader, died on October 15, 2025, after suffering a cardiac arrest in India, leaving his older brother Oburu to steer the party through its most consequential political decisions in two decades.
Nation’s analysis of the post-Raila period has described ODM as still working out its footing under Oburu, with rival factions divided over how far to go in tying the party’s fortunes to Ruto’s UDA. That internal uncertainty is part of what makes the still-unwritten power-sharing terms so sensitive for both sides.
The joint negotiating team set up at Naivasha now carries the job of turning retreat talk into an actual signed agreement, something neither UDA nor ODM has managed to nail down yet. Whether that document appears before campaigning intensifies, and whether it satisfies ODM’s 50-50 demand, will say a lot about whether this coalition survives its own internal bargaining before it even faces the opposition at the ballot.
