National Assembly Minority Leader Junet Mohamed recently issued a gag order barring ODM members from engaging other political parties without his consent.

This is just a continuation of former prime minister Raila Odinga’s penchant for sending mixed signals on issues to do with democracy.

Raila appears to have cut himself a niche when it comes to orchestrating and perpetuating confusion in Kenya’s politics. He and his party seem to operate against the long-held maxim that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Junet’s order goes against the tenets of democracy that ODM presumably applied when it joined a “broad-based” government with President Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza alliance. Raila had quietly negotiated a deal that saw four senior members of ODM take up key positions, including the Finance and Energy Cabinet secretaries, in Ruto’s reconstituted Cabinet.

Raila’s move ignited a rift in the Azimio la Umoja coalition, with a wing allied to Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka, Martha Karua’s Narc Kenya and Eugene Wamalwa’s Democratic Action Party-Kenya protesting against the decision, which they saw as a betrayal.

Before sealing the deal that led to the appointment of four ODM leaders to the Cabinet, Raila and other ODM luminaries had for months been hard on party MPs who had shown an interest in working with President Ruto. Besides de-whipping them from their positions on parliamentary committees, ODM threatened to expel so-called rebel members.

Raila and other ODM honchos followed almost the same script during President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, battling individuals in the party who appeared to warm up to the Jubilee party.

And when Raila made a sudden turn and joined Uhuru’s government through the 2018 “handshake”, everyone was expected to sing and dance to that tune.

Though Raila has consistently denied the existence of a formal power-sharing deal between his party and the Kenya Kwanza coalition – insisting that the four ODM members agreed to join the Cabinet in their individual capacities – the signs are clear that the orange party appears to have been muzzled by the President’s United Democratic Alliance.

Raila and ODM must learn to respect other people’s freedom of association and movement. Whatever is good for the goose is also good for the gander.

Junet’s order is not only retrogressive, but it also frustrates the very democratic ideals that Raila has purported to embrace and practise.