Ruto, Raila mock public with newfound unity as 2027 looms

Raila Odinga and President William Ruto have moved on, each claiming to be on top of things.

Their vehicle is MV Broad-Based Government. Gen-Zs and other Kenyans yearning for cocktails of reforms appear marooned, on the lonely island of sterile hope.  

It’s back to business as usual for the president, now busy on the 2027 campaign trail and international travels that Gen-Zs disrupted in June. Odinga is in government and groping for more space. And he will get it. Is this the change youth protesters wanted?

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 Did they probably carry their sacrifice beyond the crossroads? Their resolve to be leaderless made them significantly rudderless, to the extent they failed to see their revolution being stolen. Can they redeem their quest for fundamental change? 

The youth will probably want to chasten themselves with the lesson that the radical energies of youth often need the wise guidance of experience and age. Ringfencing reform efforts in exclusionary demographics tends to neuter them. Revolutions need all hands on deck. Every supportive voice. 

Still, Gen-Zs need not lose hope. Revolutions can take months, years, or even decades, to push through. Besides, their transformational agenda still echoes across the mountains and valleys of Kenya.

President Ruto and Mr Odinga may float curious balloons of their undefined national unity. But they will want to remember that unity is as good as the purpose for which people unite.

If Cassius and Brutus unite to assassinate Caesar, their unity is called a conspiracy. Those who preach unity must clearly show their bond’s value proposition for the nation.  

If politicians unite to defeat good governance and economic reform, they become conspirators. So far, Kenya’s new found political unity has the smell of conspiracy against sovereignty of the people.

You see, Odinga and Ruto have formed a joint government across their political parties, in disregard of the constitutional framework. They are now engaging Kenyans in superfluous semantics of what to call their joint government.

And Mr Kalonzo Musyoka’s epicyclic Wiper Party is meanwhile equivocating, itching, adorned, dancing, and groping for the entry door. The people, in August 2022, expressed their will on who should govern them. It is a conspiracy when politicians vary this without seeking public concurrence.

The stronger their unity in this resolve is, the more conspiratorial and wicked their unity is. Such unity mocks the will of the people, while also setting a bad precedence. 

It is possible for this matter that Mr Odinga has equivocated and prevaricated. He wants to straddle the Government and the Opposition. He says appalling things about President Ruto, but soldiers on with him in African Union campaigns. Now he has about a third of the Cabinet, with more state appointments coming.

Accordingly, Mr Odinga disdainfully paints the portrait of a desperate and kowtowing president, begging for support and unity in the wake of the Gen-Z uprising. Mr Odinga probably only applies metaphorical hyperbole when he talks about a “kneeling President Ruto.” But the doublethink in his newspeak is clear. 

There is also newspeak in sucking into this theatre retired President Uhuru Kenyatta. Did Uhuru prompt Odinga to reach out to Ruto? Or is this a cock and bull story? The charges and denials galore are confounding.

The political top brass should be above deliberate publishing of untruths on grave matters. However you look at it, someone is not telling the truth, we do not know whom. What is at play?

The optics speak to conspiracy all the way. First, in the face of a common Gen-Z political threat, there is a felt need to close ranks among legacy politicians. If these youth have no time for Team Legacy, then dinosaurs must unite, to jointly incapacitate the youth.

If they are not hopeful about Gen-Z support in 2027,  they must confront this common foe. Together, can they lock Gen-Z out of the 2027 voters roll, without the usual noise. 

Yet, there are other possibilities. Why is Odinga equivocating? Has his Cooperatives and SMEs CS, Wycliffe Oparanya, let the cat out of the bag? If Ruto does not take advice from ministers, Oparanya says, he will not be obliged to stay on with him. He will quit.

Could ODM abandon Ruto when he is under greater siege than during Gen-Z protests? Is this the ODM goal? They only need to pull out and tell the country President Ruto is irredeemable. That they have given him best support, but is beyond help. The real 2027 reggae seems just about to start.  

-Dr Muluka is a strategic communications advisor.