Cde,@davidjesse_
This advice is coming from someone who couldn’t win mere LSK elections.
Edwin Sifuna’s political relevance is inseparable from the ODM party. His rise within the party ranks to the SG position and later Nairobi Senator has been anchored on the ODM machinery and the goodwill of its leadership.
Sifuna did not ascend to these positions through sheer individual might; he was handpicked and supported by the party’s organizational structure, which believed in his abilities and offered him a national platform.
Some of you seem to misunderstand how politics works in Kenya. Once you have the backing of a dominant political party, your path to success is almost guaranteed. In a six-piece voting arrangement, many Kenyans did not necessarily vote for individual candidates based on personal popularity, they voted for the party. In ODM strongholds, voters supported ODM candidates because the party’s brand.
This political reality should not be lost on those misleading Sifuna. His earlier attempt to win a parliamentary seat in Kanduyi ended in defeat, a reminder of how critical ODM’s support base has been to his political success.
Those urging Sifuna to abandon ODM are not doing him any favors. Outside the party’s orbit, he risks political obscurity. ODM has been both his launchpad and his shield, the institution that transformed him from an ambitious young lawyer into a national political figure.
Leaving ODM would not just be a personal miscalculation; it would be an act of political self-erasure.
In the fluid and unforgiving landscape of Kenyan politics, very few leaders survive outside the structures that built them.
For Sifuna, ODM is not merely a political party, it is the very foundation of his public identity and influence.
Kiawa!