By the time Edwin Sifuna rose to speak in Bungoma and Kitale last weekend, the crowds had already decided what they wanted from him. The chants were no longer about his position in the Orange Democratic Movement but about a much bigger office.
It was one of those moments when politics quietly changes direction.
Somewhere between being edged out as ODM secretary-general and arriving in Western Kenya, the first-time senator for Nairobi crossed an invisible political line. He began to be imagined as the possible heir to Kenya’s tradition of organised political dissent.
Fifteen years ago, William Ruto explained to me, during a short flight from Nairobi to Eldoret, that politics was “a competition of hatreds”. Long before he became president, Ruto understood a fundamental truth about Kenyan elections. Public grievances can be organised into political power. Today the president has to confront the opposite side of the same equation.
Public disappointment always searches for a new custodian, and that quest has shaped every major political transition in modern Kenya. Ironically, the politics of grievance that carried Ruto to State House now appears to be searching for a new custodian outside it.
After 24 years of Kanu rule, Kenyans rallied behind Mwai Kibaki because he represented change. When the promise of the National Rainbow Coalition fractured, millions invested their hopes in Raila Odinga. In 2022, William Ruto persuaded millions that he embodied the aspirations of the hustler against an entitled political establishment.
Each generation chooses a vessel into which to pour its frustrations, aspirations and belief that politics can still renew itself. The individual matters, but the public mood matters even more.
Sifuna's growing popularity
The emergence of Edwin Sifuna as a likely contender for national leadership and his growing popularity cannot be explained simply by his eloquence or youthfulness. It cannot also be understood merely as the unintended consequence of muscular attempts to edge him out as ODM secretary-general. Efforts to reduce his political profile appear instead to have elevated it.
The larger explanation lies elsewhere. For more than three decades, Raila Odinga occupied a unique place in Kenya’s political imagination. He was not simply the leader of ODM or even the country’s perennial presidential candidate. He became the custodian of political dissent.
Whenever large sections of the country felt alienated from those in power, they instinctively gravitated towards Raila. He gave language to public anger. His rallies became barometers of national frustration. His political fortunes rose and fell with the hopes of citizens who believed the promises of the republic remained unfulfilled.
Among his admirers and detractors, Raila was seen as performing a political function no other leader could sustain. As his relationship with President Ruto evolved in his last days, many supporters increasingly perceived him less as the country’s permanent troublemaker and more as an elder statesman navigating the difficult terrain of national stability. That evolution may prove necessary for the country. But it has also produced an unintended consequence.
For the first time in more than 30 years, the political space Raila occupied appears available.
Somebody was always going to attempt to occupy that political space. Sifuna appears to have stumbled into it almost accidentally.
Sifuna's intellectual fluency
His speeches increasingly echo the unapologetic tone that many opposition supporters feel has become muted. His readiness to confront the Executive has resonated with younger voters who have known only economic anxiety, punitive taxation, unrelenting unemployment and the creeping suspicion that politics is unlikely to change their lives.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Sifuna combines intellectual fluency with the language of political combat. He can make constitutional argument and trade political brickbats on the rostrum.
Western Kenya has long been one of the emotional heartlands of Raila Odinga's politics. If the voices heard in Bungoma and Trans Nzoia prove to be representative of a broader mood, they would do more than endorse an ambitious senator. They would be starting the first serious conversation about the succession of Kenya’s opposition tradition.
Kenyan voters have repeatedly rewarded politicians who appear to have paid a personal price for challenging established power. Raila’s years of detention strengthened rather than diminished him. Ruto converted political isolation during the ICC years into national momentum.
The grievance constituency is large, but it is often insufficient to edge its champions from dissent into the practice of power -- unless the emotionally lukewarm who worry about their comfort are also reassured and motivated. If elections were won simply by harvesting disappointment, Raila would have been in State House 20 years ago. Beyond righteous anger, every protest figure eventually confronts the question about the kind of country they would build.
The rallies in Western Kenya suggest that the search has already begun for someone to inherit the political role Raila Odinga played for more than three decades: not merely leading an opposition party, but embodying the nation’s democratic dissent, and perhaps persuade Kenyans that dissent can become power.
The writer is a board member of the Kenya Human Rights Commission and writes in his individual capacity. @kwamchetsi; [email protected]
