Will UhuRuto dance themselves lame?

President Uhuru Kenyatta is keen on a second term. He hasn't said so directly, but his confidants are shouting from the rooftops. It is perfectly his constitutional right. In any case no Kenyan leader has served one term.

So according to the Jubilee Alliance script, Mr Kenyatta should transit smoothly into his second and final term (barring any constitutional changes targeting Presidential term limit) in 2017. If it goes according to the Jubilee plan and barring any bad news from The Hague, William Ruto, his deputy,  will be demanding his 10 years, meaning he would too be fighting to rule us till 2032! I wouldn't have taken this plot seriously were it not that our two leaders seem to seriously believe in it so much such that Mr Ruto the other day lamented that Raila Odinga was out to spoil for him in 2022.

You may have come across two political jokes by controversial Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto. One, he joked that the 2017 contest will just be a recount of the votes that swept Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto into power in 2013.

Secondly, with tongue in cheek, he claims that come 2022, a decision will have to be taken on which Ruto takes over– himself or the other Ruto (DP). There would be no problem however whether the sequence of events following the next two General Elections will go by the script Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto seem to have crafted and locked away somewhere.

What is important is that both leaders still hope to subject their dreams to an electoral contest. The problem here, however, is premised on three assumptions that should concern us as a nation. The first is that the Kalenjin-Kikuyu 'tyranny of numbers' will hold. In fact, some of us have taken note that the 'author' of this precept was paid millions by way of consultancy by the National Youth Service whose acronym has come to be derisively referred by critics as Ni Ya Sweetie (it is for sweetheart). Why? I don't know and don't ask me, please!

Whereas it is true that Mr Kenyatta (notwithstanding Mr Ruto's own burdensome baggage of recent negative publicity) has demonstrated he is ready to keep the bitter pill in his palate, one can't really tell for how long he can withstand the 'pain'. The thing is, as they say, the best colours of a leader come out in the second term when he or she has nothing to lose. So far, it is very unlikely that Mr Kenyatta will spit out Mr Ruto.

But it is not that Mr Kenyatta is clueless or not preparing a 'Plan B' in case the Ruto bubble bursts. He has done what he could to woo the Luhyas, including fishing back Eugene Wamalwa and worming his way into the heart of the Luhya nation by forking out Sh1 billion to salvage Mumias Sugar Company - shortly after the State gave out another Sh800 million which ended up in a sinkhole!

The President, who says he is on a 'development mode' and not political seduction, also has reached out to the Abagusii, ending up with five recent appointments from Simeon Nyachae's extended family.

The reasoning appears to be that, whereas from the look of things not all Kalenjins will drift away from the Jubilee bloc, you can't bank on them to deliver the 'numerical tyranny' to the GEMA bloc as they did in 2013.

So what do you do? You of course look for a few weighing stones here and there to help tilt the scales on your side. Three questions however linger in the mind; will Mr Kenyatta marshal his political constituency behind Mr Ruto in 2022? The question is hypothetical, so there is no precise answer because if a week in politics as they say is a long time, then seven or so years is a millennium. However, from the Kalenjin pessimists I have listened to, some top appointments where their kinsman was clearly the one to beat only, have always been conveniently lost to the 'mountain'. They seem to think that this lets the cat out of the bag.

Secondly, given the dynamic nature of Kenya's politics, why do they assume that all other factors will remain constant? I mean, 13 years ago, no one would have imagined Mr Kenyatta would be the man to beat in the race for State House in 2013. What would make us ignore all the other known and unknown political actors right up to 2022?

Thirdly and finally, of course Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto have the right to overrate their performance and ask everyone else to shut up, but that cannot gloss over the dark spots in their tenure. The corruption war has been bogged down by tribal mobilisation. Land grabbing is back and the Auditor General confirmed this in his latest appearance before a caucus of MPs. Also, the communities associated with Opposition feel ostracised and cursed by their limitation of numbers.

Terrorism, which they inherited, is suffocating us. The point is that so many other factors they may underrate may spoil the party for both or one of them down the road. But as long as they preach the gospel of invincibility, they may dazzle their ethnic blocs but then you do not know what is going on in the minds of the other Kenyans who, in line with Jubilee assumptions, should remain where they are today – unfeeling and detached.