MUGWE: ODM's price of coalition. What is it selling, and what is Kenya Kwanza buying?

Tanto monta, monta tanto. As much as the one is worth, so much is the other.

In the 15th century, Castile and Aragon were sovereign kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, today’s Spain and Portugal. In 1469, the King Regnant of Aragon, Ferdinand, married the Queen Regnant of Castile, Isabella.

They were co-monarchs, each a ruler in their own right, bringing the two monarchies together in a joint venture.

In Castile, Ferdinand had the title of King, but the legal authority belonged to Isabella. If they disagreed on a Castilian law, her word was final. In Aragon, Isabella had immense influence, but the legal and administrative machinery of the Aragonese territories belonged to Ferdinand.

When they married, their sovereignty was not merged. It was a personal union and the only thing shared were the monarchs. Each kingdom had its own separate parliament, laws and tax system. A Castilian citizen was considered a foreigner in Aragon and vice versa. Your legal rights didn’t follow you.

They had a Motto. Tanto monta, monta tanto. As much as the one is worth, so much is the other. It signified they were equals. The motto was represented by a yoke and arrows representing Isabella and Ferdinand, respectively. These symbols were tied together by a Gordian knot, symbolising that the union couldn’t be untied, only cut.

What looked like a marriage soon became a constitutional argument. Who was primary? Who was junior? Whose court would dominate? Whose seal would authorise? The union survived not because love conquered politics, but because power was carefully choreographed.

The famous motto was as elegant as it was deceptive. Its genius was that it allowed Ferdinand and Isabella to act as a unified front in foreign policy, while keeping their internal domestic machines completely separate.

Last week we witnessed our own rendition of tanto monta, monta tanto.

The Homa Bay Governor and ODM national chairperson, Gladys Wanga, stated the terms of her party's negotiation engagement with the Kenya Kwanza government.

She said it must do so as a 50/50 equal partner whereby ODM would have the Deputy President position if KK got the prresidency. And with the confidence of someone announcing a settled matter, she gestured toward Mining Cabinet Secretary Hassan Joho and said he has what it takes.

From the ensuing commentary, ODM loyalists heard dignity, UDA loyalists heard blackmail, and the opposition heard pressure. But all three readings missed the more interesting point.

Wanga’s demand is not really about the deputy president. It is about valuation. In political economy speak, this is known as anchoring effect.

Kenyan coalition politics is a market where parties are constantly trying to convert intangible assets such as ethnic voting blocs, candidate brands, party machinery, street legitimacy, historical grievance and the ability to depress or mobilise turnout in strategic counties into tangible offices.

These offices include cabinet slots, committee chairs, principal secretaries, parastatal boards, budgetary access and the presidency. The real work of coalition politics is not unity. It is pricing.

What Wanga announced was ODM’s opening valuation. It is a high opening bid designed to shift the eventual settlement northwards from wherever KK’s private offer currently sits. Wanga is not expecting 50/50. She is establishing that 50/50 is the floor from where the negotiations should start.

She was effectively saying that ODM will not enter negotiations as ornamental legitimacy for another man’s incumbency. It will enter as a co-owner demanding equity. And in a political economy sense, that is not irrational.

ODM is not a briefcase party. It has national recognition, mobilisation depth, and has been one of the few political formations that have survived even when its presidential candidate loses. It has also, through Raila Odinga, spent decades acting as both opposition and governing reserve currency. Parties like that do not believe they should be paid in gratitude. They expect to be paid in structure.

And that is why the 50/50 language matters.

Not because it is mathematically precise, but because of what it refuses to be. Coalitions are never really half-and-half. One side always brings more cash, state power, incumbency, coercive reach or electoral machinery.

But the equity demand rejects the psychology of junior partnership before the bargaining has even begun. And this is an important political function. It tells your base that you are not walking into an arrangement carrying the furniture while someone else keeps the title deed.

And this is where Wanga’s statement becomes especially revealing post-Raila. Does ODM become a satellite that rents out support in exchange for access? Or does it become a structured bargaining machine capable of converting its remaining political capital into enduring executive relevance? Wanga’s answer is clear. If there is to be a deal, the price must signal parity, not absorption.

But there is a complication.

Coalitions are not formed between institutions of equal discipline, but between political ecosystems with different incentives. One side controls the state, the other a swing voting bloc. One side wants loyalty, the other wants guarantees. One side wants absorption disguised as unity.

The other wants leverage disguised as partnership. This is why coalition agreements often collapse into resentment. They are written in the language of mutual respect but executed in the logic of acquisition.

Begs the question. What is ODM selling, and what is KK buying?

If the 50/50 declaration is a negotiating anchor rather than a literal parity claim, and if the deputy presidency has been publicly declared non-negotiable by KK, what is the productive outcome of the Kilifi statement?

I submit that the answer requires separating the declaration's three audiences. For ODM's base, it signals that the party is not a supplicant. This messaging is necessary for a party navigating a difficult post-Raila legitimacy transition and needs to demonstrate that the broad-based arrangement is producing returns.

For potential coalition partners and observers, it signals that ODM is still in the market for the best deal available. For KK, it is a signal that the current committee arrangement is insufficient and that something more substantive must be offered before ODM's support is secured. All three messages are rational. None requires that the demand be literally achievable.

But if ODM is selling numbers, then the valuation argument is straightforward. A party that can still shape turnout and neutralise opposition zones will demand a premium. However, if ODM is selling legitimacy, then their ultimatum weakens.

Legitimacy is useful, but it is not sovereign power. It can soften an administration’s image, widen its ethnic optics, and fracture an opposition coalition, but it does not justify half the house.

However, there is another layer. The deputy presidency in Kenya is no longer merely a ceremonial position. It has become highly priced because of what the office now symbolises after Rigathi’s impeachment and the broader realignment of Mt Kenya politics.

It is now read as a referendum on who counts, who is being courted and who is being reassured. To demand it is therefore symbolic co-ownership of the coalition. That is why Wanga’s statement lands with such force. It is a declaration that ODM does not intend to be decorative.

Finally, my first unsolicited advice is to Gladys Wanga. The tanto monta monta tanto motto is yours to deploy. But opening bids are not closing deals. You have done what serious politicians ought to do in negotiations.

You have named a price before someone else names it for you. Whether that price is realistic is a different matter. But now we will stop pretending that these talks are about unity. They are about valuation.

However, there is a difference between political valuation and realisability. ODM can declare itself worth 50 per cent. But coalitions are not priced by self-esteem but by necessity.

The question is whether KK will need ODM enough by 2027 to pay that kind of premium. If KK can rebuild its own numbers, fracture rivals and retain enough incumbency advantage, then ODM’s price may be deemed too high. If, however, KK finds itself facing a fragmented but dangerous opposition, a restless electorate and a thinning path to first-round victory, then your price may start to look less like arrogance and more like the market rate.

Secondly, it is to KK. Do not dismiss Wanga’s statement as noise. It is early bargaining architecture. She is trying to do two things at once. First, to harden ODM’s negotiating floor and second, to shape the imagination of what is politically thinkable.

In coalition politics, this matters. The side that names the terms early often changes the range of outcomes later. Today it sounds audacious. Tomorrow it may sound probable. That is how political pricing works.

Ferdinand and Isabella's union survived 50 years of joint rule and produced the most powerful empire in the world. It also produced the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion of the Jews and the subjugation of the Americas, none of which appeared in the Concordia de Segovia's careful provisions.

Coalitions are evaluated by what they build and what they destroy, not by whether the founding formula was honoured in every document. History will evaluate ODM and KK’s coalition on the same terms.

Political alliances are often like marriages; the fine print becomes visible only after the vows – Unknown

The writer is a political economist