Uhuru’s new power men

President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto’s government is seven years old this week, but the camaraderie that defined their first term has faded and their union now faces a hostile break-up.

On April 23, 2013, the two leaders announced their first Cabinet. With matching white shirts, red ties and dark grey trousers, as well as hearty back pats, their dalliance earned the moniker ‘bromance’. 

They first won the presidency as a coalition of Mr Kenyatta’s The National Alliance (TNA) and Dr Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP). They shared power on a 50:50 basis, hence the joint unveiling of their Cabinet.

Perhaps as a portrayal of the trust in their unity, they dissolved their parties alongside 10 others to form Jubilee Party ahead of the 2017 polls. 

The two had hoped Jubilee would become a juggernaut in the fashion of South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC), but although they secured re-election through the new vehicle, the camaraderie that was the hallmark of their first term has all but faded, and the ruling party has imploded into rival factions with allegiance to either leader.

Ruto is fighting to gain control of the ruling party on whose ticket he hopes to contest the presidency in 2022, while forces opposed to his quest are determined to secure a stranglehold of Jubilee in furtherance of their plan for a possible coalition with Raila Odinga’s ODM and Senator Gideon Moi’s Kanu.

As Uhuru’s final term approaches the halfway mark and in the middle of a global pandemic, his deputy is rarely by his side. Had their earlier script played out, this would be the time Ruto is hoisted into the limelight by the president to help his cause for election by demonstrating he is equal to the rigours of high office.

Matiang’i factor

But even before Covid-19 struck, Uhuru had granted Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i more powers to oversee government programmes through an Executive Order that was seen as undermining his deputy’s authority.

Now, Health CS Mutahi Kagwe is the face of the government’s response to the pandemic. When daily briefings are not done by the Health ministry, it is the president making the address from State House. 

Mr Odinga’s influence in government circles has also grown immensely following his March 9 truce with Uhuru. He receives regular briefings from Cabinet secretaries on government policies.

These developments have portrayed Ruto as an outsider in government, fighting resistance from within. Top Jubilee officials openly declare they will undermine his quest to run for president. Key party officials are increasingly seen to be closer to Raila, widely viewed as the DP’s likely main challenger in 2022.

“Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident … When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall,” Ruto wrote on Twitter yesterday.

Of late, he has made most of his public remarks through his Twitter, and often on the bitter feud in Jubilee Party.

“As Kenyans are focused on the Covid-19 pandemic, some shadowy characters are attempting to fraudulently institute illegal changes in officials of Jubilee Party. As deputy leader, I have alerted the Registrar of the fraud. Party members should know that the matter is being handled,” Ruto tweeted on April 10.

This was in response to changes to the National Management Committee (NMC) that were submitted to the Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu by Jubilee Secretary General Raphael Tuju.

10 years each?

Had everything gone according to the Jubilee script of Ruto succeeding Uhuru for another 10 years, State machinery would be working to bolster the former Eldoret North MP’s bid.

In the ruling party’s heyday, the grand plan was that Uhuru would rule for 10 years followed by Ruto for a similar period. During the 2017 presidential campaigns, Uhuru did not miss an opportunity to remind their political rivals, including Raila, that they would have to wait for 20 years – 10 for himself and another 10 for his deputy.  

But the pact in the ruling party seems to have ran into trouble after the entry of Raila through the famous handshake, which Ruto has publicly blamed for the discord in Jubilee. He has claimed Raila has been using the handshake, and lately the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) campaigns, to assemble his machinery for a fifth bid at the top seat.

Raila’s allies are this time hoping to have Uhuru on the former premier’s side. This would effectively collapse the Jubilee house as it would mean the president would rally his constituency to back Raila, leaving Ruto’s URP wing to go it alone.

Claims by poll losers from the Mt Kenya region that Ruto rigged them out in the party primaries in 2017 to install his allies to champion his bid are likely to trigger further disintegration in the outfit, which has Rift Valley and Mt Kenya as its political strongholds.

Uhuru and Ruto had managed to cobble up a union in December 2012 by blending TNA with URP at Afraha Stadium on a rainy afternoon. It was a new chapter in the history of the two, whom supporters jointly called ‘UhuRuto’. In some circles, they were called the dynamic duo.

And as a show of their bond and friendship, Ruto, who spoke before Uhuru, introduced the then Gatundu South MP as “my friend, my brother, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta.”

The union would later run into temporary setbacks following reports of Uhuru stepping down in favour of Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi. The abortive one-page deal is said to have been signed in dramatic moments on the night of December 4, 2012, and would have seen Mr Mudavadi fly the team’s presidential flag.

But Uhuru would later disown the deal, claiming he was forced to sign the agreement with Mudavadi after being blackmailed by “dark forces”.

“He (the devil) came to me and told me that if we are elected, the West will not give Kenya money, that our tea can’t be sold abroad and that Kenyans are not ready for another Kikuyu president as this will cause more bloodshed. Given that I love peace, I decided to support Musalia,” Uhuru told delegates at the Multi Media University on December 18, 2012.

Uhuru made the about-turn while claiming that powerful individuals in President Mwai Kibaki’s administration were against another Kikuyu ascending to power. The Uhuru-Ruto bid also faced opposition because they had been indicted by the International Criminal Court, with some sections arguing that they were not eligible to vie for the top seat.

Ironically, Ruto has on several occasions now claimed that the system was out to block him from succeeding Uhuru.

“DCI has been mobilised, for political reasons, to discredit and destroy my office with all manner of nonsense and to bring me down, but there is God in heaven,” Ruto said during the burial of Frank Kenei, an AP officer who was attached to his office and who was found murdered amid investigations into a fake arms deal involving former Cabinet Secretary Rashid Echesa.

Exchanged caps

“Those in this scheme are boasting that I will not be there soon. Since the system cannot elect anybody, they can only kill,” Ruto has claimed.

In the run-up to the 2013 presidential vote at Afraha Stadium, Uhuru and Ruto exchanged caps bearing their party colours, and with a smile here and a warm embrace there ‘solemnised’ the union that endorsed Uhuru as the presidential candidate with Ruto as his running mate.

But since the beginning of their second term, joint public appearances have been few and far between, with their allies engaged in unending infighting.

Unlike in 2013 when they would announce their Cabinet walking hand-in-hand, after the 2017 poll, Uhuru announced changes in the absence of Ruto. Ruto’s perceived allies – former Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri and ex-Sports CS Echesa – have consequently been fired from the Cabinet in the escalating wrangles.

Yesterday, Ruto allies blamed Raila for planting seeds of discord in the ruling outfit. Opposition MPs on the other hand, termed the Uhuru and Ruto marriage dead and beyond reconciliation. Jubilee Deputy Secretary General Caleb Kositany (Soy MP), Cornelly Serem (Aldai) and Didmus Barasa (Kimilili) said Jubilee was united until Raila came in through the handshake. Mr Kositany said it was unbelievable that Raila was now in government when those who campaigned to put Jubilee in power were being pushed out.

He recalled how the URP wing was warned against agreeing to the merger in 2016 as it would be used and dumped after helping Uhuru succeed. Kositany, however, said they are happy their decision to merge helped the country escape politically instigated chaos in the last two polls.

“What is happening is unbelievable, but not unbelievable in the world of politics. It is unbelievable that Raila is now in government and people who formed it are being pushed out,” said Kositany, a close Ruto ally.

“When we were forming Jubilee, we were told that we will be used and dumped. But we want to believe that we have not been used and we will not revenge. We will carry on with the Jubilee dream of uniting the country. Those who are trying to dismantle Jubilee should remember remarks by Uhuru that Jubilee is about team work and uniting the country.”

Parliamentary caucus

Mr Serem said it was not surprising Raila has succeeded in destroying Jubilee. He said Uhuru used to engage them through the parliamentary caucus in his first term, but has since stopped following the deal with Raila.

“Opposition MPs are now more government than government itself. They are even telling us that they are in Jubilee. This betrayal is not new and will not be the last,” said Serem.

Mr Barasa said it was a fallacy for Uhuru and Raila to claim their handshake was meant to unite the country when it had instead alienated some parts.

“When Raila came to work with Uhuru, we warned Uhuru that the former prime minister is an enemy who has come to destroy,” Barasa claimed.

ANC Deputy Party Leader Ayub Savula (Lugari), ODM Political Affairs Secretary Opiyo Wandayi (Ugunja), Nominated MP Godfrey Osotsi and Jubilee National Advisory Council chairperson Albert Nyaundi said the Uhuru-Ruto union was beyond repair.

“I’m not privy to the happenings in Jubilee. But if you ask for my honest opinion, I will tell you the marriage between the president and his deputy is no longer tenable,” said Mr Wandayi.

Mr Nyaundi said the union between the two leaders is on the rocks: “In politics, there are no permanent friends neither are there permanent enemies. But as it stands now, one of them has deep political sins.”

Mr Osotsi said the wrangles in Jubilee had reached a point of no return,

“In the Cabinet, it is Matiang’i chairing sub-committees. This means Uhuru has no interest in his principal assistant. He has stopped Ruto from launching projects. Right now if he launches a project, the funds are diverted through supplementary budgets to other programmes,” Mr Savula claimed.