By Morris Wambua

There is no opposition in Kenya. Let’s begin there, before we waste anyone’s time.
What Kenya has is a national religion called “pretend resistance,” with congregants who shout in rallies by day and kneel for political communion by night.

For six decades, the so-called opposition has oscillated between fiery street preachers and palace gatekeepers, all while serving one god: access to state power.

If opposition politics were a business, Kenya’s would be a family empire. The shareholders are well-established.

The dividends are ministerial posts, parastatal appointments, and vague constitutional
amendments that leave citizens poorer and the political class better moisturized.

Opposition, in this country, is not a counterforce.

It’s a waiting room.

A lobby of the discontented elite.

The longer you sit there shouting, the higher your chances of being summoned to the
main banquet.

Let us trace this betrayal, chapter by chapter.

1963–1966: KADU’s Noble Fight — Until It Wasn’t

Our political tragedy began almost immediately after independence. KADU, that noble little outfit of regionalists who said, “We need devolution,” folded itself neatly into KANU just three years in.

No war.

No ideological defeat.

No public outcry.

Just a collective and well-fed surrender.

Ronald Ngala, Masinde Muliro, and Daniel arap Moi. These were men who had painted themselves as protectors of minority interests, but entered government and never looked back. That was the first rule written into the Kenyan Opposition Handbook: “If you can’t beat them, join them, and then pretend you’re still fighting.”

This began our long national tradition of opposition politics as theatrical performance.

Politicians stopped believing in ideas and started believing in appointments.

The Moi Era: Resistance as Ransom, Opposition as Career

Under Moi, opposition was not just discouraged. It was criminalized. Dissenters were detained, newspapers were burned, and party politics were reduced to KANU, KANU, and more KANU. But even in this darkness, the opportunists found ways to thrive.

Take the "second liberation" heroes.

Brave? Yes. Visionary? Sometimes. Opportunistic? Oh, absolutely.

Kenneth Matiba, Charles Rubia, and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga suffered greatly for speaking up. But their suffering quickly turned into political capital to be cashed in, not preserved. The moment
multipartyism returned, they jumped into elections not to transform the country but to become the very thing they once fought.

By 1992, the opposition was split five ways; Matiba shouting over Odinga, Odinga ignoring Wamalwa, and Wamalwa whispering to Moi.

The goal? Not victory. Just enough noise to be noticed and, preferably, offered something.

Moi, the master puppeteer, laughed all the way to the ballot box.

2002: The Hope That Died in a Cabinet Reshuffle

Kibaki comes in 2002. This was Kenya’s one shot at true opposition to the government
transformation. The NARC coalition, forged in unity and baptized in sacrifice,
sent KANU packing. And for a brief moment, the sky opened. Kenya saw what principled political transition could look like.

Then, the honeymoon ended — as they always do when the groom forgets the marriage vows.

RaIla Odinga, who had uttered the famous “Kibaki Tosha,” found himself outside government again. The promised new constitution was shelved. Political deals were torn up like parking tickets. And the opposition returned — this time, bitter, theatrical, and armed with a new
slogan: “betrayal.”

But betrayal only works when it’s not your turn to do the betraying. Because when 2007 came, and Raila was “robbed” of the presidency, the country burned, and the leaders bartered. Instead of truth and justice, we got a Grand Coalition Government. A comical power-sharing deal where everybody got a title, and nobody got accountability.

The second rule of Kenyan Opposition Politics: “Every tragedy is a chance to negotiate.”

2013–2017: The Theatre Years

Raila Odinga, still wearing the revolutionary hat, was now the permanent leader of the opposition. His rallies were electric. His insults, poetic. His threats to boycott elections, a staple of prime-time news. NASA, the National Super Alliance, was born. It looked like a proper coalition until you realized it was just another club of aging politicians trying to unseat their peers for a
turn at the feeding trough.

2017’s post-election drama gave us the most absurd moment in Kenya’s political history: a mock swearing-in ceremony. Raila, draped in a white shirt, holding a Bible, declared himself the “People’s
President” surrounded by men who couldn’t run a county newsletter.

When the government sent the police, what happened? Everyone vanished. Kalonzo Musyoka fled. Wetang’ula developed sudden laryngitis. Even Miguna Miguna, that fiery revolutionary — the self-styled five-star general found himself deported faster than his next soundbite.

And then, the biggest twist of all: Raila’s 2018 Handshake with Uhuru Kenyatta.

No policy.

No public explanation.

Just two old men holding hands while the country stared in stunned silence.

That’s when the third rule of Kenyan Opposition was written: “You’re only angry until the president calls.”

Geriatric Populism for the Social Media Age

If Shakespeare were alive today, he’d write a tragedy titled “The Wamunyoro: The Elderly Rebellion That Wasn’t.”

These are men who have been in every government since the 1980s, now rebranding themselves as rebels because they changed the colour of their ties and opened Twitter accounts.

They are not a movement. They are a meme. Their revolutionary language sounds like recycled Bob Marley lyrics filtered through a parliamentary pension scheme.

They claim to be fighting for the youth. The same youth they have excluded for decades.

They call themselves “a third force” while meeting in five-star hotels with security details and soufflé on the table. They promise change while using the same playbook from 1997: complain, convene, get co-opted.

The Wamunyoro brigade is not offering new politics. They are repackaging old betrayal in younger language. It’s like putting a flat-screen TV in a mud house and declaring it a smart home.

The Real Opposition Doesn’t Have a Party Leader

The only real opposition we’ve seen in recent years wasn’t led by Raila, Kalonzo, Wetangula, or any of the Wamunyoro chorus. It came from Kenya’s most ungovernable constituency: Gen Z.

These young citizens, unbothered by tribal arithmetic or handshake etiquette, organized protests against taxation, digital surveillance, and economic strangulation.

They had no party, no patron, no gatekeeper. Their only manifesto was lived experience. The cost of unga, the price of fuel, and the scam of HELB loans.

They were everything the Wamunyoro aren’t: unbribable, unpredictable, and unscripted. And they scared the establishment.

Let us finally admit it: Kenyan opposition politics is not a counterbalance to state power. It is a political apprenticeship, and the curriculum is betrayal.

The leaders rehearse outrage until the power door opens, and then walk through it as though the revolution was never necessary.

What we call “the opposition” is a revolving cast of insiders pretending to be outsiders. They are players in a political soap opera that always ends with champagne and shared tenders.

And we, the citizens?

We are the audience, cheering and crying, season after season, as the same script plays out.

Until we stop believing that shouting is the same as resisting, until we stop mistaking theatrical defiance for ideological commitment, until we demand integrity before volume, this country will
continue to be ruled not by its governments, but by its illusions.

So no, Kenya doesn’t need another opposition party.It needs a funeral — for the myth.