Deputy President William Ruto's arrogance is his greatest undoing

If all things remain equal Deputy President William Ruto will be in State house at some point in 2022. In fact, Deputy President Ruto already has one foot inside the State House if we have to believe his pact with President Uhuru Kenyatta. However, due to his arrogant ambition and tendency of insulting other leaders, Ruto risks being the architect of his own downfall.

Ruto is behaving as though he has got the presidency in his pocket yet what he forgets is that politics is a game of numbers. He needs to realize that his friendship alone with President Uhuru will not by any means guarantee his victory during the 2022 presidential elections. To help him understand this he needs to step back and listen to the murmurs in the Rift Valley. The government wing of President Uhuru will not say openly but its good news to them when there are several centres of power in Rutos backyard. These centres of power led by Gideon Moi and Isaac Rutto serve two major purposes both to the advantage of the Jubilee wing of the President. One is to ensure that Uhuru Kenyatta still has grip on the rich Rift Valley vote. In case there is a fallout with Deputy President, Gideon Moi will be approached instantly to fill the gap. Secondly, for as long as there are disgruntled voices in the Rift Valley with the ability to dissuade sizeable number of voters, Ruto will lose his bargaining power. His opponents from within Rift Valley will begin building alliances with other regions and this may portray Ruto as a politician who has lost grip on the electorate. It’s most likely at this point politicians from Uhuru’s backyard will begin to backtrack and they are likely to prop up one of their own come 2022.

What William Ruto should do is to try and present a unified front heading in to 2017 and eventually find ways to work out how to solidify his base heading to 2022. President Uhuru on his visit to Ruto's backyard recently was forced to reassure the residents that he will support Ruto to clinch the presidency in 2022. This was in an effort to silence the critics and deal with the murmurs. However, Ruto should know that insulting other leaders especially the likes of Gideon Moi and Isaac Ruto may not help him in the long run.

Ruto will have a real battle in 2022. Raila Odinga will not be in the race then, however he will definitely convince his die hard supporters to vote one way or the other. Raila is angry with Ruto partly because he shifted to Uhuru’s side with almost 2.5 million votes that would have helped the former ascend to Presidency. There are also politicians known to have presidential ambitions like Peter Kenneth, Peter Munya, Hassan Joho, Musalia Mudavadi and others.

Deputy President Ruto has a tendency of picking quarrels with leaders in different regions across the political divide. It’s not a secret that he doesn’t see eye to eye with Mombasa governor Hassan Joho; he recently picked a quarrel with the former Devolution Secretary Anne Waiguru over the NYS Scandal, he constantly makes mockery of Moses Wetangula’s purported marital problems and the list keeps growing if you include Gideon Moi and Isaac Rutto. What he doesn’t understand or even foresee is that this may be parochial leaders in the next decade of their respective communities and therefore he must trend carefully.

William Shakespeare’s plays especially Macbeth and Julius Caesar exquisitely play act the promise and perils of ambition which in most cases result in the demise of those who harbour it in excessive quantities. Deputy President is a towering genius who does not have to demean other leaders to showcase his abilities and power. He needs to remain wise, calm, collected and disciplined to retain the necessary public good will. Thus, Deputy President Ruto has a huge responsibility to rein in his ego for it is the worst enemy of good leaders.