ODM Coast leaders meet amid growing tension in broad-based government

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ODM deputy party leader and Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Sharrif Nassir and Coast elected leaders after the meeting in Vipingo, Kilifi County, on April 18, 2026. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

ODM deputy party leader and Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Sharrif Nassir convened a meeting of elected leaders from the Coast region in Vipingo, Kilifi County, a gathering that insiders say laid bare the region’s growing impatience ahead of the 2027 General Election.

‎The high-stakes meeting brought together ODM governors, senators and Members of Parliament across the six Coast counties.

The mood, sources say, was not one of fear but of a region that knows it’s worth and is not in a hurry to sell it to the lowest bidder.

‎‎Coast leaders pushed for ODM to run an independent campaign, protecting every seat, and negotiating from outside rather than from within an arrangement that has yet to deliver concrete political dividends for the region.

‎Leaders were concerned that UDA members and aspirants had taken advantage of the cooperation under the broad-based government to attempt to edge ODM out of its traditional bases.

‎UDA Secretary General Hassan Omar recently dismissed ODM’s demands for political zoning, insisting that the Coast belongs to its residents and that every party has a right to compete anywhere. 

At Vipingo, the leaders dismissed Omar’s assertion, saying that ODM did not build two decades of dominance at the Coast to now seek permission to hold what it already owns.

‎‎‎Nassir has maintained that ODM will go into negotiations “as equal partners, not as a weaker party,” and the Vipingo meeting reinforced that line.

The governor reportedly told the leaders that zoning of Coast region is not negotiable, and he would personally carry that position to the party’s national leadership.

‎‎‎Critics within ODM and beyond have warned that President William Ruto’s strategy is aimed at dismantling ODM’s independence rather than building a genuine partnership; an assessment that has hardened resolve among grassroots leaders who lived through similar playbooks before.

‎Some ODM leaders now fear that UDA is using the broad-based government arrangement to coerce party members and reduce ODM into a regional outfit. 

The consensus emerging from the Vipingo meeting is that ODM, and particularly the Coast, holds the organisational depth, the electoral numbers, and the political legitimacy to define the terms of 2027, not merely respond to them.

‎ODM party leader Oburu Oginga has been emphatic nationally: “We are not ready to cede these electoral seats we already have to any other party. We are going to compete fiercely.” 

In Vipingo, Coast leaders made clear they intend to hold him to that.