UDA Senate aspirant Stephen Kahocho and Ganze MP aspirant Zawadi Kingi in a rally. Photo by Ben Okweingoti. 
By Ben Okweingoti
United Democratic Alliance (UDA) aspirants and delegates in Kilifi County have threatened to abandon the ruling party and contest the 2027 General Election on alternative or independent tickets if the party bows to pressure from the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to zone elective positions.
The aspirants say they have invested heavily in building the UDA brand and mobilising support across the county and would therefore reject any arrangement that requires them to step aside for ODM candidates.
The dispute comes amid growing debate within the UDA-ODM broad-based political arrangement over the sharing of elective positions ahead of the 2027 polls. UDA has previously announced plans to support ODM Governor Gideon Mung’aro’s re-election bid in Kilifi, while local UDA aspirants are demanding that other positions remain open to competition.
Senate aspirant Stephen Kahocho, who is seeking to unseat long-serving Senator Stewart Madzayo, said UDA members in Kilifi were prepared to support Mung’aro but would not surrender other elective positions to ODM.
“There’s this broad-based arrangement between UDA and ODM and ODM is demanding all elective positions in the county if they are to support President Ruto, but we will not allow that to happen because we in UDA have also decided to support Governor Mung’aro’s re-election and all the other seats should be competitive,” Kahocho said.
He warned that he would leave UDA and run as an independent candidate if the arrangement forced him to back Madzayo.
“If President Ruto will be forced into that arrangement then I will marshal other aspirants to vie on independent tickets since we also have supporters behind us and we have invested heavily in this thing,” he said.
Ganze parliamentary aspirant Zawadi Kingi also challenged the UDA leadership to allow party primaries, saying she was confident of securing the party ticket.
Kingi said she was opposed to any arrangement that would automatically favour the sitting MP, who previously belonged to the Pamoja African Alliance (PAA) before joining UDA following the dissolution of the party.
“We have the sitting MP who was formerly a Pamoja African Alliance (PAA) party member and he is now in UDA after the party was dissolved but I have information that the party wants to support his re-election. We as original UDA members will not allow this to happen,” she said.
Women Representative aspirant Fatuma Ramadhan similarly called for an open contest, urging President William Ruto to allow local political competition ahead of the elections.
“President Ruto should allow democracy to reign and we are asking him to leave us to battle it out in local politics,” she said.
The latest disagreement adds to growing political tensions within UDA in Kilifi, where the party has already lost several prominent figures ahead of the 2027 elections.
Former Cabinet Secretary Aisha Jumwa, one of UDA's prominent coastal figures, resigned from the party in July after citing frustrations surrounding her gubernatorial ambitions. She subsequently joined the Wiper Patriotic Front and announced her intention to contest the Kilifi governorship.
The disagreement over zoning is not confined to Kilifi. UDA figures in other coastal counties have also publicly opposed proposals they say could limit the party's ability to field candidates against ODM in the 2027 elections.
With the 2027 contest approaching, the Kilifi standoff places renewed focus on how the UDA-ODM arrangement will translate into local nominations—and whether aspirants who have built their political bases under UDA will accept being asked to step aside for candidates from the rival party.
