Curse of ruling parties: Can UDA overcome and go beyond 2027?

Sometime in September last year, a bullish President William Ruto shared his dream to have his United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party last a century.

It was the same plan that former President Uhuru Kenyatta had for the Jubilee Party, of which Ruto was a co-founder, before disintegrating after his handshake with former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

As he had stressed countless times before, Ruto asserted that UDA would not follow the path of his former party. If anything, it would grow stronger.

At the time, the President pushed for the dissolution of other Kenya Kwanza Alliance affiliates into UDA and faced resistance from all corners. In the intervening months, fortunes have changed slightly. Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi’s Amani National Congress is open to a merger with UDA. National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula’s Ford Kenya will not budge.

When he charted his party’s 100-year plan, there were signs that Ruto’s dreams were stretched. Wrangles had rocked the party barely a year after it asserted its dominance in the general election.

There were plans to tame its then-deputy leader, former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, by introducing a second deputy leader slot. There was talk that Mudavadi should fill the role, although he would not qualify because as a Cabinet Secretary, he cannot be an official in political parties.

Ruto would defeat the push for an amendment of the party’s constitution to introduce the said provision, and he and Gachagua would present a united front before a convention of the party’s governing council at the Bomas of Kenya.

In three months, they were to hold nationwide grassroots elections for all party officials. A year later, UDA has essentially shelved election plans after divisive false starts.

The behemoth that won 143 constituency seats in the 2022 polls overestimated its abilities, falling to the curse that has bedevilled parties over the years. It also seems to be walking the path towards disintegration just three years after it was registered.

UDA officials are soon expected to toss Gachagua off the party’s wheelbarrow ushering in Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, who was sworn in as DP on Friday.

Lose seats

In August, UDA kicked out former Secretary General Cleophas Malala from office, the first in a looming purge targeting Gachagua’s allies.

The ruling party could take a dent courtesy of the former DP’s removal. Gachagua’s ouster split UDA’s members, with some lawmakers from the Mt Kenya region backing the ex-DP. It is doubtful that UDA will get the support it enjoyed from Mt Kenya in the next polls, meaning that it could lose many of its current seats.

That remains to be seen though. The party has two years to change its fortunes in Mt Kenya.

“Going forward, the party might need to restructure and engage like-minded parties,” Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei told The Sunday Standard.

UDA is already engaging other parties and could formalise its ties with Raila’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). A “broad-based” arrangement between the two parties has yielded stability for the President, who, months ago, was under siege by Kenya’s youth, who led a nationwide uprising that brought the system to its knees.

A coalition between them offers UDA the chance for survival, with Cherargei bullish that the party’s 100-year dream is still valid, arguing UDA would survive its impending split with Gachagua.

“The 100-year UDA dream is still very valid because there is a solid agenda. The party has been vibrant and is building different chapters and leagues, such as the women’s league, youth league and others. The delivery of our manifesto will also ensure that our party remains vibrant,” said Cherargei.

Gitile Naituli, a professor of leadership and management, observes that dependence on ODM could be a mortal blunder for UDA, arguing that Raila could bolt out of the broad-based arrangement with Ruto ahead of the next elections.

“ODM is carefully disassociating with Ruto, saying they only donated experts to the government and that they are not part of UDA,” said Prof Naituli, who further argued that UDA’s fate was sealed as it had disenfranchised the “hustlers” it promised to liberate from economic strains.

“He cannot sell the wheelbarrow narrative to anyone because no one will buy it. But I think Ruto could transform UDA into another outfit,” said Naituli.

He believes that UDA will survive until 2027 “but will not be UDA as we know it today.”

“It will be a skeleton by the time we get there because the misery Kenyans are feeling will only get worse,” said Naituli.

Since Kenya’s independence party Kanu ceded power to Narc in 2002, the country has had a different ruling party with every electoral cycle.

“We do not have a party culture,” said Francis Owakah who teaches philosophy at the University of Nairobi on why parties hardly survive successive cycles.

Naituli concurred, saying parties in Kenya lack ideologies.

“Parties are supposed to be based on shared ideology, vision and objectives for the country. Our parties’ objectives are only to win power. They lack principles. There is no party with principles it won’t compromise tomorrow,” he said.

Before UDA, there was Jubilee. The grand party imploded when Ruto rebelled against Uhuru following his 2018 handshake with Raila.

Jubilee was initially a coalition of Uhuru’s defunct The National Alliance (TNA) and Ruto’s United Republican Party, which rose to power in 2013.

TNA succeeded the late former President Mwai Kibaki’s Party of National Unity, which had been formed ahead of the 2007 elections following the collapse of Narc, through which Kibaki won his first term in office in 2002.

Narc, a coalition of opposition parties, crumbled barely three years after its founding. A disregarded Memorandum of Understanding and a divisive vote on a new referendum saw the ruling party collapse.

Dr Owakah argues that UDA could survive “depending on how the President plays around with Raila.”

“But Raila could have a card up his sleeves and unleash it at the right time,” he said.