Kisii Senator Richard Onyonka has defended former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s decision to back Raila Odinga in the 2022 presidential election, saying the former president was deliberately trying to move Kenya away from a political pattern that had largely placed the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities at the centre of the contest for State power.
Speaking during a Radio Generation interview on Monday, Onyonka dismissed claims that Kenyatta never genuinely wanted Odinga to succeed him, arguing that the former president’s actions before the election showed that he wanted to create an opportunity for a leader outside the traditional political arrangement to take over.
“I find it completely offensive when I find members from the local community(Luo) who are in ODM arguing that Uhuru, in fact, did not even have an agenda of making Raila president,” the Senator explained.
Onyonka said Kenyatta was seeking to end a cycle in which political competition between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities had shaped much of the country's presidential politics.
“In reality, Uhuru was trying to break that cycle, where you have two communities in Kenya—the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu—dominating the political conversation. There is nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you reach a point where you deliberately decide to give someone outside that traditional political arrangement an opportunity. That is how Obama became President; he was the most unlikely person,” he said.
The senator compared Kenyatta’s support for Odinga with the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, saying political systems can give people from communities that have not traditionally held power an opportunity to lead.
Onyonka argued that Obama’s rise showed how political support could help a minority community feel represented and included in national leadership.
The senator was speaking about the 2022 presidential contest in which Odinga, then running on the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition ticket, faced William Ruto of the Kenya Kwanza coalition.
According to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Ruto won the election with 7,176,141 votes, representing 50.49 per cent of the valid votes cast.
Odinga received 6,942,930 votes, equivalent to 48.85 per cent, giving Ruto a margin of 233,211 votes.
The presidential race was settled after the national tallying process at the Bomas of Kenya, while the Supreme Court later upheld the results following petitions challenging the outcome.
Millions of Kenyans took part in the election, with Ruto and Odinga receiving the overwhelming majority of the votes. The other two presidential candidates, George Wajackoyah and David Waihiga, together secured less than one per cent of the vote.
Onyonka said one of the clearest signs of the impact of Kenyatta’s support for Odinga could be seen in the former Prime Minister’s performance in Central Kenya.
“Raila historically never went beyond 300,000 votes in central. This was the first time he actually got a million votes. He got a million votes,” he said.
He rejected the view that Odinga lost the election because Kenyatta failed to give him enough political support.
Instead, Onyonka pointed to problems within the Azimio campaign, particularly the handling and deployment of polling station agents.
The senator argued that some polling stations did not have agents representing the coalition, creating what he said could have been openings for the manipulation of results.
Kenyatta’s decision to back Odinga came after the two leaders had spent years on opposite sides of Kenya’s political divide.
Their relationship changed after the March 2018 “handshake”, which brought an end to their public political confrontation following the disputed 2017 presidential election and opened a new period of cooperation between the two leaders.
The partnership later focused on constitutional and political reforms through the Building Bridges Initiative, commonly known as BBI.
Kenyatta eventually backed Odinga in the 2022 presidential election, despite having previously been political rivals.
Onyonka said the importance of that partnership should not be judged only by the fact that Odinga eventually lost the presidential election.
He maintained that Kenyatta’s support had already changed voting patterns, particularly in parts of the country where Odinga had traditionally struggled to attract large numbers of votes.
The senator’s remarks come as debate continues over Kenyatta’s political legacy, his relationship with Odinga and the role of both leaders in shaping Kenya’s politics ahead of the 2027 General Election.