About a year ago, Kenya woke to news that Raila Odinga was dead. He collapsed during a morning walk in Kerala, India, and never rose again. A seven-day mourning period was declared, and millions lined the roads as his body returned. On October 19, he was buried beside his father at Kang'o ka Jaramogi in Bondo.
To date, the void is real. Jakom is not on the ballot. For the first time since 1997, Raila will not be a presidential candidate next year. That is a seismic shift. The question is not who will fill his shoes, but who reads the moment correctly. ODM has done exactly that.
This month, the party and government have moved in lockstep. ODM declared October ‘Mwezi wa Baba.’ Nairobi hosted a candle-lighting on October 2. On October 7, President William Ruto commissioned the pentagon-shaped mausoleum at Kang'o ka Jaramogi, a pointed tribute to the 2007 Pentagon that first brought the two together.
Today, October 14, Ida Odinga leads an international candle-lighting at the gravesite. Tomorrow, October 15, Bondo's Migwena grounds host ‘The People, The Struggle and The Aspiration.’ It is Raila commemoration.
The scramble is on everywhere else. Kalonzo Musyoka speaks of completing the journey to Canaan. Rigathi Gachagua, Martha Karua and Fred Matiang'i are circling. But ODM, the party Raila built, has refused to panic. It will not field a presidential candidate in 2027. It will adopt Ruto as the candidate to beat. Think about that.
Critics call that surrender. I call it a strategic survival in the absence of the founding father. It is a bold show of political maturity by a party that understands a founder's death is not the movement's death.
Contrast that discipline with the breakaway Linda Mwananchi faction, led by Edwin Sifuna, which claims custodianship of Raila's legacy while going against his wishes. It has courted Gachagua, the man who spent years demonising Raila through tribal rhetoric and disparaging his supporters as people who could never be trusted with power.
The same Gachagua who, one year after Baba's death, is yet to set foot at Kang'o ka Jaramogi. And this is the man Linda Mwananchi embraces. A movement invoking Baba's name while embracing the sworn enemies he never made peace with is not preserving his legacy. It is repackaging his opponents in other colours.
And here is the enigma. Raila spent his life building coalitions with men he had fought: Daniel arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta, whom he embraced in 2018, and eventually Ruto. He knew politics is the art of the possible, that power is won not by purity but by pragmatism. ODM's decision to back Ruto is faithful to that legacy. It is not betrayal. It is continuation.
The President 's role in Raila's absence has been remarkable. He stood at Bondo and declared that a building cannot contain Baba's legacy. By adopting Ruto as the candidate to beat, the Orange party turns that embrace into a partnership. Ruto needs ODM's numbers and its loyalty. ODM needs Ruto's power and his temerity.
This is how ODM survives. It stays at the centre of national power. It ensures Nyanza is not isolated. It gives the party a seat at the table where budgets, policies and appointments are made.
As Kenya moves toward 2027, Raila's absence will be felt. The great mobiliser is gone. But his absence is not ODM's absence. The party still stands. It has made its choice: Ruto is the candidate to beat, and ODM is the kingmaker.
Those tributes matter. The mausoleum, the candle-lighting, the memorial celebrations in Bondo-they are fitting honours for a man who gave this nation four decades of struggle. But the greatest tribute is a party that lives on. Raila built ODM to outlast him. In backing Ruto, the party is proving his creation can survive without him.
One year after Jakom's death, ODM is still standing. That is not weakness. That is strategy. That is legacy. The void is real. The scramble is real. But ODM has not fallen into the void. It has built a bridge. And on that bridge, Ruto is the candidate to beat.
Strategic adviser and an expert in leadership and governance
