The appointment of Charles Keter to the cabinet seems to be a well-calculated move by President Kenyatta.
Through the impending Kericho County senatorial by-election, the president will get a perfect opportunity to establish whether his deputy is committed to the merger between URP and TNA, as they move into the future. It is not lost to Kenyans that at one point, the two went around the country telling their supporters that they had merged into one party called JAP. They went ahead to field candidates in the Kajiado Central and Kabete by-elections on JAP tickets.
The party lost the Kajiado Central by-election, but won the Kabete by-election, thereby making Ferdinand Waititu the first JAP MP. Many months later, it is coming out that the merger never materialised; at least as far as the new clarion calls on the merger is concerned.
The reaction from URP supporters raised eyebrows. While TNA went ahead to rebrand their offices using the JAP colours and had new officials take charge of JAP, the URP-wing of the Jubilee Coalition stayed put, unmoved by the ecstasy that marked the birth of the new party. This sent a strong message that, probably, the deputy president was not (is not) committed to the idea of dissolving URP to form one party with TNA, and was only dancing to the JAP tune in public while turning his back to the JAP crowd, as he led the URP orchestra furtively. The lackluster approach towards JAP by URP has led to more questions than answers.
Can the president count on their support? If so, why was there a negative reaction towards JAP? For the president, the need to find the underlying cause of such a puzzle may be crucial and urgent.
The President’s party, TNA, has not lost hope of enticing URP into a merger. The ensuing events led to a new move to form another party that will merge all Jubilee member parties, notwithstanding the resistance by some Jubilee member parties like the independence party, KANU. This time, stakeholders have promised a process based on wide consultations. Noah Wekesa Mahalang'ang'a has been given the mandate to spearhead the formation of the new party, even though some Jubilee politicians indicate that it is only a JAP renaming process. It is not clear whether they will iron out issues that prevented URP from joining JAP. What is clear, though, is that comments from various political figures from the Kalenjin-Rift Valley bear some fear overtones. Presumably, the fear of Mount Kenya domination of the new party might play a part in derailing the much-talked-about merger once again. Therefore, in the thick of all this, and for the TNA-wing of Jubilee, a political test is necessary to determine the willingness of the deputy president’s supporters to join the new party being floated. A by-election right at the heartland of the Kalenjin nation helps to meet this goal.
By appointing Keter to the cabinet, President Kenyatta proverbially manages to kill two birds with one stone. First, he has sent a message to the Kipsigis, who, hitherto, have been complaining of being sidelined in key government appointments, about his ‘concern’ for them, now that a respected son is a cabinet secretary. More importantly, the president has managed to corner his deputy; this is an opportunity to ascertain his loyalty. Does he mean what he says about the new party? Going forward to the 2017 General Election, the president, at least, needs to have some levels of certainty that he has the support of the deputy president and that of his supporters whom he relied on to win (or so it was) the last General Elections. Anything to the contrary would mean that he has to get a replacement, a situation that may involve endearing himself to another (other) populous tribe(s), given that Kenyan politics largely anchors on ethnic arithmetic. Accordingly, as he tests the extent of Jubilee’s penetration of the CORD-dominated Coast region using the impending by-election in Malindi Constituency, left vacant by Dan Kazungu, his Mining CS nominee, Kericho County will be the guinea pig in the Rift Valley. It will be interesting to see how politics between the two largest Jubilee member parties play out. A merger engineered with William Ruto’s blessings will definitely enable him to go into the by-election without any problems with his boss. However, if the same scenario witnessed with the formation of JAP replicates, then the relationship between the president and his deputy may deteriorate. So far, owing to Ruto’s public pronouncements, he seems ready to support the merger. Whether he does so both in word and in soul, is another case all together.
Apparently, if URP fails to dissolve on the advice of party members, Ruto will find it difficult to convince the president why URP has to field a candidate in the Kericho by-election. Bearing his position in government, as well as his political weight in Rift Valley, the expectation is that he will lead the campaigns for a candidate sponsored by the new party. Therefore, URP will have no choice but to dissolve. The president and his deputy have to go into the by-election as one party to convince their supporters that they mean what they say with regard to their quest to operate as a party, not as a coalition of parties. A backlash from URP members will make it clear to the president that his deputy may have no long-term political relationships with him. On the other hand, all other factors remaining passive, merging into one party, and fielding a candidate on that party’s ticket, will help to erase any doubts about the support of the Kalenjin Community to the President. In the mean time, it will be tricky for the deputy president whose supporters had demanded ‘their own party’, when they felt ODM was not ‘treating them well’. The argument, then, was that, with their own party, they could have better bargaining power with other parties.
