As Kenya races toward the next general election, the political chessboard is shifting—new alignments, strategic retreats, sharpened attack lines and unlikely alliances. From county by-elections to City Hall drama, from the SHA and eCitizen scandals to Governor Sakaja’s survival and the fluid future of the opposition, every move now carries existential stakes not just for parties, but for the country.
Fred Matiang’i has consolidated real clout, built a disciplined base and rallied much of Gusii leadership into a national opposition caucus. Through Jubilee, he is positioning himself as a serious player in the arithmetic to challenge the broad-based regime. That a former bureaucratic heavyweight is now shaping outcomes on the ground is telling; it could reset the regional power matrix. The uproar—and at times near-unethical attacks—aimed at second-liberation luminary Dr Mukhisa Kituyi after his appointment as spokesperson of the United Opposition shows the fever pitch: the establishment is rattled.
The first test for the opposition is internal: tame dissent and agree how each constituent party consolidates its strongholds. Voters will watch the coming by-elections closely—not only ward seats but the Senate race in Baringo and the constituencies of Banissa, Kasipul, Magarini, Malava, Mbeere North and Ugunja. A strong showing would be a statement of intent. The opposition doesn’t have to sweep the board, but it must halt UDA and ODM advances in Banissa, Magarini, Malava and Mbeere North, while mounting credible fights in Baringo, Kasipul and Ugunja.
Unity is the message that must cut through. The regime’s narrative insists there is no viable alternative to President William Ruto; the emerging accommodation between Kenya Kwanza and ODM under a “broad-based” banner is held up as proof of invincibility, buoyed by boasts of numbers and the insinuation—by a few loose cannons—that defeat can be fixed away. With Rigathi Gachagua looming large in the opposition’s imagination and a rejuvenated, two-decade-old ODM striding tall, that aura only breaks if a united opposition wins enough of the coming tests to puncture inevitability.
The wind, for once, seems to favour the opposition. The regime’s disruptive grand ideas have been accompanied by allegations of grand corruption and a public perception that “budgeted theft” is baked into governance. Recent reports by the Auditor-General have deepened this view—flagging dubious SHA payments to ghost hospitals allegedly linked to senior officials, and the eCitizen heist running into billions. In a season of high prices and shrinking pay-packets, such scandals are politically radioactive.
But outrage alone is not a plan. The opposition must tie every scandal to lived economics: the cost of unga, transport, school fees, and pay-slip raids that leave families with less. Africa’s recent history suggests incumbents can be dislodged when the alternative is organised and credible. If Botswana is contested as a parallel, Malawi offers a clearer template: unite, focus on bread-and-butter issues, and demonstrate administrative seriousness over patronage. The burden now sits with the people’s loyal opposition—and with its senior figure, Kalonzo Musyoka—to present a clear roadmap that looks like a government-in-waiting, not a coalition in therapy.
It is no surprise, then, that overtures to poach Kalonzo have intensified. That only reinforces a simple truth: if united, the opposition can beat a broad-based regime. What Kenyans need is not perfection but intent—unity, organisation and a willingness to take the fight to every doorstep of every broad-based candidate. Victory in every contest is unnecessary; a disciplined campaign anchored in public-interest issues can rally the country and remind the political class that WANTAM is not a hashtag but a mood.
This moment demands seriousness about WANTAM—more than fixation on a single flagbearer. If the opposition can subordinate ego to programme, convert anger into policy, and turn scattered protests into a ballot-box strategy, it will have done more than dent inevitability. It will have offered Kenyans a plausible alternative—and that, in a democracy on edge, is the point.
[Dr. Hesbon Owila is a Media and Political Communications Researcher.]
