The late ODM leader Raila Odinga and Senator Edwin Sifuna …..Photo/IP
By Peter Marango Mwibanda | Opinion
For more than two decades, Kenya’s political opposition drew its legitimacy from a simple promise: to defend the Constitution, protect civil liberties and stand with ordinary citizens whenever state power threatened individual freedoms.
Few parties embodied that mission more than the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
Born from the struggle for democratic reforms and strengthened through years of political contestation, ODM positioned itself as the conscience of Kenya’s democracy.
It challenged executive excesses, condemned alleged enforced disappearances, criticized police brutality and championed the constitutional rights guaranteed under the 2010 Constitution.
Today, however, that legacy is increasingly being questioned.
As allegations of abductions, enforced disappearances and heavy-handed responses to protesters continue to dominate Kenya’s political discourse, critics argue that ODM has become noticeably less confrontational toward the government.
The party that once mobilized thousands against what it described as state repression now finds itself accused of muted criticism while maintaining closer political cooperation with President William Ruto’s administration.
The contrast is difficult to ignore.
What ODM once condemned as poison now appears, in the eyes of its critics, to have become politically palatable.
The uncompromising language of constitutionalism has, they argue, given way to the careful language of political accommodation.
Whether that perception is fair or not, it reflects a growing concern among many Kenyans that opposition politics is losing its defining purpose.
Human rights are not meant to depend on political alliances.
The Constitution protects every Kenyan equally, regardless of who occupies State House or who shares political platforms with the government.
Allegations of enforced disappearances, intimidation of critics or excessive force against demonstrators deserve transparent, independent investigations and accountability wherever credible evidence exists.
The measure of a democratic movement is not how loudly it speaks when excluded from power, but how consistently it defends fundamental freedoms when political incentives encourage silence.
Across the country, many citizens are grappling with rising living costs, unemployment and economic uncertainty.
Against that backdrop, political rallies, public donations and elite negotiations risk appearing disconnected from the daily struggles of ordinary Kenyans.
History is often unforgiving toward political movements that abandon the principles that first inspired public confidence.
Political partnerships may deliver short-term influence, but credibility is built on consistency.
Kenya’s democratic gains were secured through decades of sacrifice by citizens, civil society, religious leaders and political reformers who believed that constitutional rights should never be negotiable.
Those gains can only endure if every political actor—government and opposition alike—is prepared to defend them regardless of political convenience.
The defining question is therefore no longer whether Kenya has an opposition.
It is whether the country’s political class, irrespective of party affiliation, still possesses the courage to defend constitutional freedoms with the same conviction they demanded when they stood outside the corridors of power.
Ends.
