Is the running UDA chaos a usual ploy or could it be a serious Gachagua push-out?

UDA delegates had lined up for voting at North Nyokal divisional headquarters in Rangwe Constituency on May 31, 2024. [James Omoro, Standard]

Could the ongoing attacks against Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua that have created tension and division in the Kenya Kwanza coalition be a red herring programmed to divert attention from the many scandals in government?

President William Ruto’s young government has grappled with many multi-billion shilling scams raised by whistle-blowers and audit reports since his Kenya Kwanza took over power barely two years ago.

The government has also spent a lot of time parring off queries from the public over what is deemed to be punitive taxation measures currently being debated in the proposed Finance Bill 2024, a scenario similar to the 2023 money bill.

But a raging feud has now erupted in government, just when anger was boiling over the intended taxation of bread, among other levies, that will directly hit the common man.

It all began when the deputy president started missing from the president’s meetings and other State functions and also complained that his office had been denied adequate funds for operations.

Four years ago, Luis Franceschi, a senior director, governance and peace at The Commonwealth Secretariat in London, said it is a proven concept the ingenuity of modern-day Kenyan corruption scandals lies in generating collective public and institutional amnesia.

 “It seems the country’s collective psyche, despite being appalled at the grand theft, is eventually lulled into moving past the affair,” Franceschi wrote.

That explains why some Kenyans fear that the Kenya Kwanza government could be using diversionary tactics by creating some misplaced infighting, like that seemingly targeting Gachagua. 

That debate is now growing as more attacks are unleashed on Gachagua by, among others the UDA party Secretary General Cleophas Malala and Nairobi governor Johnson Sakaja, both known to be among President Ruto’s hatchet men. 

Veteran journalist Tony Gachoka, a former detainee who now serves as the Democratic Party of Kenya (DAP-K) spokesperson however thinks the attacks against Gachagua are not a joke.

“I know that his handlers are shopping around for a political party, but that is not an issue because there are many parties which can be taken over, just like Eugene Wamalwa, Mwangi Kiunjuri, Moses Kuria and even Ruto himself did before the 2022 elections,” says Gachoka.

Gachoka thinks the biggest issue is that the fallout between Ruto and Gachagua is irreversible because:

“You don’t start that kind of public spat with your boss and think that you can reconcile.  That will be a waterloo.”

His sources in the Mt Kenya political circles also indicate that Gachagua may be planning to run for President in 2027, and that is why he is keen to bring all Mt Kenya region leaders together.

He, however sees the deputy president facing many challenges, including getting a coalition to work with even if he manages to get the Jubilee party some of whose members he recently convinced to work with UDA in the Kenya Kwanza coalition.

Former president Mwai Kibaki faced a similar predicament in 2007, when he won the election with a massive backing from the Mt Kenya region but failed to get enough numbers in parliament.

In 2007, the running mate position  was not a consideration and so Kibaki brought in Kalonzo Musyoka as the Vice President ostensibly to increase the number of Party of National Unity (PNU) MPs through the additional members from Wiper Party.

But that was the old order under the old constitution before the introduction of a running mate on the presidential ballot in the 2010 Constitution.

And so it will now be more challenging for Gachagua because, apart from getting a suitable running mate, he will be forced to win a majority in more than half of the counties, something that Kibaki failed to manage even with Musyoka on board.

But on the flipside, the former Mathira MP can also play spoiler for Ruto, if another strong candidate emerges, because had Musyoka not run in 2007 after splitting from ODM, Raila Odinga’s ODM party could have won that election with a landslide.

And so the big story is whether the fall out between Gachagua and Ruto is real, given the history of leaders diverting attention whenever big scandals hit the headlines.

In 2006, The ODM party leaders vowed to storm parliament and take over its business to force debate on the then unfolding Anglo Leasing scandals because president Kibaki was diverting attention by demoting some of his ministers instead of sacking and prosecuting the culprits.

The opposition vowed to disrupt parliament and make the country ungovernable after claiming that the president’s action of reshuffling the Cabinet was a red herring to evade accountability and the anger that was boiling in the country.

The then House Speaker Francis ole Kaparo moved quickly to avert the crisis through a warning that storming parliament was illegal and that such a move would be unconstitutional.

Political analyst Martin Andati says the current scenario is completely different from the political games that were played by President Moi’s Kanu government in the 1990s.

He recounted that during the Robert Ouko murder riots, the government hired Scotland Yard detective John Troon to allegedly unmask the killing and succeeded in diverting attention to the investigation and a trial that turned into a farce.

His assessment now is different.

“Targeting Gachagua is not a ploy. The fallout is real. The entry of Raila into Ruto’s circle has pushed him away. His space is now taken by the ODM leader.”

It appears youthful politicians like Ndindi Nyoro and Kimani Ichungwa, supported by Malala and Sakaja among others, have been instructed to cut the deputy president to size early enough before he creates a bigger fuss after 2017.

“They don’t want to give him room to grow horns. So they are managing him early enough. Ruto does not want Gachagua to do to him what he himself did to Uhuru Kenyatta since 2018,” said Andati.

Andati points out that Gachagua’s body language shows that he is a man under siege.

Gachoka referred to the speech the deputy president made at the national prayer breakfast on Thursday as a key indicator of the changed man that he has become in recent weeks.

The former Raila aide says the speech was very cleverly done, but critics could tell it was not the same old Gachagua who used to lecture audiences on everything about what the government was doing or what was expected from the MPs.

“He must have laboured for many hours thinking about how he was going to break the ice and came up with the Ruto and Rachel holding hands story including bringing Musalia into the conversation, and nobody saw him taking that approach. He caught all of them, including Ruto, off guard,” says Gachoka.

Observers further noted that Gachagua also read a very loaded verse from the Bible at the prayer meeting from the book of Jeremiah that partly said: “Then you will call upon me and I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.”

Analysts argue that the onslaught against Gachagua is serious because he created enemies, by creating his own circle of followers in the Mt Kenya region to the displeasure of Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro.