Nairobi, Sept. 12 — A rift has opened within Kenya’s opposition ranks after former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua moved to shut down Embakasi East MP Babu Owino’s push to immediately name a single flagbearer to face President William Ruto in 2027, warning the move would hand Ruto’s camp a weapon to tear the alliance apart before it even forms.
Owino had fired the opening shot at a Linda Mwananchi rally in Nairobi on September 8, demanding the opposition settle on a candidate without delay. “The best time for these people to unite is now,” he told the crowd, arguing that further hesitation would guarantee defeat at the ballot.
But Gachagua, speaking to Kenyans in Portland, USA, hit back hard, revealing he had personally phoned Owino to warn him off the idea. “I told Babu Owino, I have been around for long and I know how to do these things,” Gachagua said, casting himself as the seasoned hand steering a still-fragile coalition away from a costly misstep.
Naming a candidate too early, Gachagua argued, would expose that person to sustained political fire and give Ruto’s operatives room to sow “infiltration and division” within opposition ranks long before the vote. He invoked the 2002 playbook, when Mwai Kibaki was unveiled as the united opposition’s flagbearer a mere two months and thirteen days before the election that swept him to power, as proof that a late reveal is a winning strategy, not a weakness.
Notably, even as he counsels patience, Gachagua has made clear he sees himself as the front-runner to lead that eventual ticket, while insisting he will fall in behind whoever the opposition ultimately settles on.
The clash exposes a widening tactical divide inside the anti-Ruto camp, one that will need to be resolved before Kenya’s fractured opposition can present any real threat in 2027.