Inside the UDA-ODM 2027 Coalition: The teams, agenda and big questions

For months, the political conversation around President William Ruto's administration and ODM has revolved around one question:

Was the broad-based government simply an arrangement for running government, or was it the beginning of something bigger?

The answer is becoming clearer.

At a Naivasha retreat on August 10, President Ruto and ODM leader Oburu Oginga announced that Kenya Kwanza and ODM had formally resolved to develop a joint manifesto and establish a coalition to contest the 2027 General Election together.

The announcement came exactly a year before Kenyans are scheduled to vote.

The two sides have now moved to the next stage: putting people and structures behind the political agreement.

Two teams, two jobs

The emerging coalition has created two joint committees.

The first is the Joint Manifesto Committee, tasked with developing the programme that UDA and ODM will take to voters in 2027.

The 10-member team has five representatives from each side and is expected to identify shared priorities and turn them into a common political platform.

The second is the Coalition Framework Committee.

Its job is more political: to work out how the partnership itself will operate, including its structures, decision-making arrangements and other aspects of the coalition agreement.

In simple terms, one team is working on what the coalition will promise Kenyans, while the other is working on how the coalition will function.

People behind the manifesto

The manifesto team brings together 10 representatives.

On the ODM side are Isaac Wanuge, Maryam Abdullahi Mbaruk, Leonida Kerubo Omosa, Carrey Orege and Prof Bernard Muok, with the party's Executive Director serving ex officio.

UDA/Kenya Kwanza is represented by Emmanuel Nzai, Dr Daniel Mwai, Bramwel Simiyu, Mohammed Hassan and Dr Cecilia Ng'etich, alongside the UDA Executive Director in an ex-officio capacity.

The significance of the team is that the proposed 2027 programme will not simply be written by the two party leaders.

It is being developed through a joint technical process before it reaches the political leadership.

What's the joint agenda about?

The coalition says its manifesto will be built around the priorities shared by the two political formations while incorporating views and aspirations gathered from Kenyans.

The partnership also has an existing starting point: the 10-point agenda that brought UDA and ODM into closer cooperation.

The proposed manifesto therefore has the potential to take that earlier framework and turn it into a broader 2027 campaign programme covering the issues the two sides want to put before voters.

That distinction matters.

A coalition agreement determines how political parties work together; a manifesto tells voters what they intend to do with power.

The value of ODM

ODM is entering the arrangement with a political identity and grassroots network that it says it will retain.

Oburu has rejected the idea that the party joined the alliance from a position of weakness, insisting that ODM remains an independent political organisation and will maintain its identity inside the partnership.

The party therefore brings an established political base, particularly in western Kenya and Nyanza, alongside parliamentary and grassroots networks built over many election cycles.

The value of UDA

UDA brings the sitting president and the machinery of the governing coalition.

For Ruto, bringing ODM into a formal 2027 arrangement potentially expands the political geography of his re-election campaign while giving the administration a broader coalition from which to seek a second mandate.

The Naivasha meeting shows that the partnership is now being organised around more than parliamentary cooperation or appointments in government.

It is being prepared as an electoral vehicle.

The big question: Who gets what?

This is where the coalition framework becomes particularly important.

The two sides have yet to publicly settle every question surrounding the final political arrangement.

The framework committee is expected to help establish the rules of the partnership, including its leadership and power-sharing architecture.

That leaves several questions hanging over the alliance.

• How will the coalition be structured?

• How will leadership positions be shared?

• What happens to UDA and ODM as individual parties?

• How will nominations be handled?

And, perhaps most importantly, what will the final presidential ticket look like?

Those questions should not be presented as settled when the latest agreement has not answered all of them.

Broad-based government to election coalition

The journey is important.

The UDA-ODM relationship began with political cooperation and the broad-based government.

It has now moved towards joint structures, a common manifesto and a formal coalition intended to contest the next election.

The immediate task is therefore no longer simply maintaining cooperation inside government.

It is building a political organisation capable of going to voters in August 2027 with a shared programme.

For now, the committees are doing the groundwork.

Their recommendations could ultimately determine what the UDA-ODM alliance looks like when the campaign officially begins.