Democratic Party (DP) leader Justin Muturi has confirmed that the initial draft on the united opposition’s presidential flagbearer selection was already issued to the principals four months ago.

While speaking during an interview on Herman Manyora’s YouTube podcast on Friday, February 13, 2026, the former attorney general stated that they had constituted a technical team in which every constituent party of the united opposition had a representative.

Muturi further explained that the initial draft presented to the principals by the technical team outlined the situations and scenarios they could use to settle on a flagbearer.

He added that the technical team has also been tasked with providing two additional proposals, which, according to him, will soon be made available to the united opposition heads during a retreat.

According to Muturi, the three proposals will eventually produce the final metric that the united opposition principals will use to identify their presidential flagbearer who will challenge President William Ruto in 2027.

He emphasised that even the final metric must first be agreed upon by the principals before it is put into action.

“We have agreed to put up a team to work; all the constituent parties within the United Opposition have seconded a person there to go and come up and look at various scenarios and come up with proposals, which very soon we will be taken through at a retreat.”

“The initial draft was given to us about 4 months ago, showing the various scenarios available for us to use to identify a presidential flag bearer.”

This comes days after Democratic Action Party (DAP-K) leader Eugene Wamalwa hinted at a two-day retreat that was expected to begin on February 12, 2026, where opposition leaders would converge to develop the formula they will use to select their preferred flagbearer and coin the coalition’s name.

Flag bearer puzzle

There have been calls by Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, who proposed that they name their candidate within the first quarter of 2026, something the former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua disagreed with, saying they should name their flagbearer a few months before the 2027 general election.

Eugene Wamalwa also recently sided with Gachagua, saying the united opposition will name its preferred candidate about six months before the general election.

Muturi’s rebuttal

JB Muturi has come out to differ with the idea of late naming of the flagbearer, citing the Kenya African National Union (KANU) experience in 2002, when there was a mass exodus from the party after then-President Daniel Moi named Uhuru Kenyatta as the flagbearer at the last minute. He warned that the united opposition risks finding itself in a similar scenario.

All the united opposition principals have stated that despite all of them harbouring presidential ambitions, they will shelve them and rally behind the chosen candidate who will be the coalition’s presidential flagbearer.