Kenya’s Somali Vote Emerges as 2027 Kingmaker — and a Test of the Country’s Coalitions
On a blustery afternoon in Mandera, near the triple border where Kenya meets Ethiopia and Somalia, the political message was as direct as the dusty road to the venue: the Somali community will count, perhaps more than ever, in the 2027 election. Suna East MP Junet Mohamed, a seasoned operative known for his sharp tongue and long-time loyalty to opposition leader Raila Odinga, stood alongside President William Ruto and said the quiet part out loud. “The Somali people are hardworking,” he told the crowd, “they run businesses, and they contribute significantly to the GDP of this country. In 2027, their numbers will determine the elections.”
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There was an unmistakable subtext. Junet, once a fixture of Odinga’s inner circle, pledged to “reach 2027 together” with the president. In Kenyan politics, where coalitions often shift faster than roadside kiosks restock sugar, that signal carries weight. And it raises a question: Is this simply electoral arithmetic, or the start of a deeper realignment around Kenya’s frontier economies and urban trade hubs — many of them shaped by Somali entrepreneurship?
The arithmetic — and the map
Numbers only tell part of the story, but they matter. The three northeastern counties of Mandera, Wajir, and Garissa registered roughly 626,000 voters in 2022, according to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. Turnout averaged around 61 percent. In that cycle, Odinga topped the polls in all three counties. Layer onto that the decisive presence of Somali voters in Nairobi’s Eastleigh district — a wholesale and logistics nerve center that feeds supply chains across much of the country — and you begin to see the outlines of Junet’s calculus. If Ruto can consolidate support in the northeast while making inroads into urban Somali constituencies, the ripple effects could sway tight battlegrounds elsewhere.
Ruto’s message in Mandera was crafted to travel well: education as the ladder of equality. Praising the Eltabashi Educational Trust for opening doors to children who might otherwise be left out, the president framed schooling as the engine of shared prosperity. “The more education is made accessible to our children, the more empowered, equal and prosperous we become,” he said. It’s a unifying pitch that avoids the pitfalls of micro-targeted ethnic appeals while speaking to a region where classrooms and roads can be as political as manifestos.
Realignment or rehearsal?
Junet’s endorsement of Ruto’s broad-based governance is striking precisely because he has long been associated with Odinga’s camp. But Kenyan politics has a way of remixing allegiances. After the 2018 “handshake” between Odinga and then-President Uhuru Kenyatta, alliances blurred. After the 2022 election, Ruto moved swiftly to bring rivals into a big-tent narrative rooted in economic transformation, digital innovation, and hustler politics. Mandera suggests that the tent is expanding toward the northeast — and that pragmatic calculus is alive on both sides.
Is this a turning point or a dress rehearsal? The answer will be clearer when the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission resets for 2027 and party primaries begin to bite. But the contours are visible: northeastern votes, once assumed to be locked in an opposition column, are in play; national parties will need credible voices and policy commitments for counties long saddled with drought, insecurity and underinvestment.
Beyond identity: the economics of influence
To reduce the Somali community’s political clout to raw identity would be to miss the engine under the hood. Eastleigh — sometimes dubbed “Little Mogadishu” — is a humming grid of shops, warehouses and money-transfer services that power national retail, textiles, and electronics. Somali traders bridge supply lines from Dubai to Guangzhou to the Kenyan interior. Remittance networks and sharia-compliant finance have helped families and businesses absorb shocks that cripple others.
In northern counties, cross-border pastoralism remains a bedrock of livelihoods. Markets in Mandera, Wajir and Garissa are where clan ties intersect with modern logistics and mobile money. When a lawmaker says “they contribute significantly to the GDP,” it’s not just flattery. It’s an acknowledgment of networks that connect kayole kiosks to Gulf freeports, and rural herders to urban consumers. If 2027 becomes a referendum on inclusive growth, expect manifestos to speak more fluently about borderlands, trade corridors, special economic zones, and the road–school–clinic triad that communities have demanded for decades.
The guardrails
There is another truth, and it bears repeating as 2027 draws closer. Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission has consistently warned against ethnic mobilization. So has the electoral umpire. Rallying voters by tribe, even with good intentions, can tip quickly into division. Kenyans know this history too well — the 2007–08 violence left an imprint that responsible leaders now cite as a cautionary tale. The 2010 constitution and devolution were meant to rebalance power and share resources; they were also a promise that politics need not be a zero-sum contest between communities.
Junet himself framed 2027 as a reckoning with “politics of exclusivity” and “entitlement.” If that assertion holds, then the Somali vote as kingmaker is not simply about headcounts, but about ideas: inclusion, fairness, and the dignity of long-marginalized regions. The test is whether campaigns can talk credibly about security and civic freedoms, support for pastoralist economies alongside urban SMEs, and the public goods — teachers, clinicians, boreholes, fibre optic lines — that anchor opportunity.
A Kenyan story with global echoes
There is a broader arc here that connects Kenya to other democracies. Diaspora-rooted or minority communities with strong commercial networks — from Turkish traders in Germany to Somali-Americans in Minnesota — are increasingly shaping policy debates, not just party lists. When politicians show up at community fundraisers, the photo is only part of the story. The other part is policy: access to credit, cross-border trade facilitation, education, and a policing model that protects rather than profiles.
In Mandera, the symbolism was layered. A fundraiser for an educational trust brought together politicians, scholars and clerics; it also served as a stage for political repositioning two years before the polls. That combination — social investment and political mobilization — is vintage Kenyan politics. The open question is whether the substance will match the theater.
What to watch next
- Policy commitments for the north: Will budget lines for roads, teachers and health workers in Mandera, Wajir and Garissa move from podium promises to procurement orders?
- Urban trade hubs: How will the state engage Eastleigh and similar markets — with enabling infrastructure and fair regulation, or sporadic crackdowns and mixed signals?
- Coalition math: Do national parties elevate credible leaders from the northeast to top-tier roles, or treat the region as a vote bank?
- Cohesion over identity: Will candidates avoid ethnic tokenism and make a broader case for inclusive growth that resonates from Lodwar to Likoni?
Kenya’s politics can be noisy, but the country remains pragmatic. Voters tend to reward leaders who deliver. If Junet Mohamed is right and the Somali electorate will be decisive, the winning strategy may not be to speak to one community, but to speak with it — and to translate those conversations into public goods the entire country can see, measure and feel.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
