They presented a united front, but their biggest and perhaps most important test yet is just beginning.
Former Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, who was absent during the new party launch in Nairobi, is also in the shadows as a potential presidential candidate.
Some top opposition politicians have recently declared their intentions to run for office, triggering fears that they could repeat the mistakes that befell the original Ford movement in 1992.
People’s Liberation Party leader Martha Karua with other opposition leaders during PLP's launch in Nairobi on February 27, 2025.
Photo credit: Boniface Bogita | Nation Media Group
However, during the party launch, the opposition figures spoke with one voice: they were ready to back whoever among them is picked as the group’s flag bearer in 2027 and were united in their resolve to make Dr Ruto a one-term president.
“I have expressed my wish to run for president, and the rest of the people here have the same ambition. Others will be making announcements later… Each one of us must subordinate our interests to the interest of the nation. Whoever gets elected as the candidate through a transparent method that we shall devise, we shall all rally behind that person,” Ms Karua said.
People's Liberation Party leader Martha Karua delivers her speech during the party's launch in Nairobi on February 27, 2025.
Photo credit: Boniface Bogita | Nation Media Group
Ms Karua said that the call for unity is the foundation of the liberation movement and that their commitment is to send President Ruto home.
She made the unity call while training her guns on President Ruto’s administration for failing to deliver on the lofty promises that it made in the run up to the last general elections.
She said that the Kenya Kwanza regime and its allies have destabilised both the education and health systems while the affordable housing project is not being done in a transparent manner.
“They are grabbing land of people with title deeds and giving it to cronies. Some of those demolitions are not about the environment, it is not about affordable housing, and it is not about public use but about gifting his friends that land,” said Ms Karua.
Mr Gachagua –who has become a fierce critic of Dr Ruto’s administration after his impeachment as Deputy President – said they have to remain united for them to beat Dr Ruto.
He said they would be facing an ordinary politician but someone who can engineer a split to weaken them ahead of the next elections.
“We have nothing against each other. Just that we were on different sides, but I used to admire her (Karua) and others even then. Let us continue strengthening our parties, mobilizing our spots and at the right time we will sit down and come up with a formula to draft a line-up of leadership that will liberate this country and restore the dignity of Kenyan people,” Mr Gachagua said.
He said that serving as the deputy president under President Ruto made him understand the kind of the person that the Head of State is, noting that he will exploit the knowledge to ensure he is defeated in the next elections.
“We know him, don’t worry. The day that we will start climbing on the vehicle rooftops as he is doing, we will dismantle him, we will disclose him well to an extent that people will start running away from him,” Mr Gachagua said.
Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua gives a speech during the launch of People’s Liberation Party in Nairobi on February 27, 2025.
Photo credit: Boniface Bogita | Nation Media Group
According to Mr Gachagua, President Ruto has used his two years in office to sell lies to Kenyans instead of pushing for developments which he promised during the campaigns.
“We must sacrifice as leaders of this country to stand up to these men because if we don’t, there will be no country here. In a record two years, Ruto has destroyed the Kenyan health system, education system, and the cost of living is unbearable. And two years has been nothing but a package of lies and lie,” Mr Gachagua said.
He also claimed that despite being in President Ruto’s team that won the election, their election was the worst mistake that Kenyans made.
“This man deceived all of us, I included. Sometimes I sit at night and feel very foolish because I did not see him through. Kenyans will soon know the real person who Ruto is, provided that this team remains united,” the former deputy president said.
He asked former Prime Minister Raila Odinga , currently in a rapprochement with President Ruto with the co-option of his party members in Cabinet amid talk of a possible merger, to be careful as he deals with President Ruto.
Mr Musyoka, who has in the past said he would not back any other person having supported Mr Odinga in 2013, 2017 and 2022, said that it is the right time for Kenyans to unite and say no to the criminality that is ongoing in the country.
“The country is united against one person who pretends that he is busy uniting all Kenyans. We are going to do the necessary thing today after this. It is going to be bigger than 2002,” Mr Musyoka said, making reference to the 2002 opposition coalition that vanquished independence party Kanu out of power, and catapulted Mwai Kibaki to the presidency with nearly two-thirds of the vote.
“We are going to be an action-oriented unity movement,” Mr Musyoka said, adding that they will escalate the liberation slogan.
Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka gives a speech during the launch of People’s Liberation Party in Nairobi on February 27, 2025.
Photo credit: Boniface Bogita | Nation Media Group
In an event that attracted more than 1,000 PLP delegates across the country and attended by more than 20 MPs, Mr Musyoka announced that they will work with the like-minded people and Generation-Z—those typically born between 1997 and 2012—to strengthen their movement.
“I want to make a proposal that June 25, if it meets the approval of young Kenyans, we will declare it a national holiday. I cannot wait to see it.”
The Wiper leader said that they will ensure that the numbers of the new movement which will be announced soon gains popularity across the country.
Other leaders who attended the event included Jimi Wanjigi, activist Morara Kebaso, former Cabinet minister Mukhisa Kituyi, former Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana among others, including some opposition leaders from Uganda and Tanzania.
But for the new opposition push, ghosts of the past hover over their new bid, even with their resolve to stick together to the end.
In 1992, efforts to have a united opposition coalition in the multiparty era flopped dramatically, giving then President Moi another term in office.
The giant Ford that had led the country in the battle to move Kenya from Kanu’s single party rule could not front a single candidate to face Mr Moi.
The competing interests in the movement led to the emergence of splinter parties with Mr Kenneth Matiba forming Ford-Asili and Mr Jaramogi leading Ford-Kenya. Mr Kibaki, another key opposition politician ran for presidency on his then Democratic Party ticket.
In the end, Moi triumphed.
In the presidential elections, Mr Moi garnered 1,927,645 votes against Mr Matiba’s 1,354,856.
Mr Kibaki polled 1,035,507 while Mr Oginga got 903,886. The figures show the opposition would have easily floored Mr Moi should they have fronted a joint candidate.
It was the same script in 1997 even after the ‘Hilton Agreement’ that indicated that all opposition candidates would renounce their claim to the presidency and consider a joint ticket.
Mr Moi polled 2,500,865 votes followed by Mr Kibaki (1,911,742), Mr Raila Odinga (667,886), Mr Kijana Wamalwa (505,704) and Ms Charity Ngilu (488,600), among others.
In 2007, a united Orange movement that beat Mr Kibaki in the 2005 referendum split in the run up to the presidential race, handing the incumbent a second term in the contest poll that plunged the country into a deadly post-election violence.
Mr Musyoka led a group of ODM Kenya supporters, mainly from Eastern Province while Mr Odinga’s camp included fellow ODM presidential aspirants William Ruto, Musalia Mudavadi, Najib Balala and Joseph Nyagah.
Mr Kibaki of PNU won a re-election after polling 4,584,721 votes against Mr Odinga’s 4,352,993 and Mr Musyoka’s 879, 903.
