Why Mount Kenya's voting bloc challenges presidential hopefuls

Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Youth League leader John Mark Ketorah and Mukurweini MP John Kaguchia during an interview on Spice FM on Tuesday, January 20. [Courtesy]

Politicians eyeing the presidency in the forthcoming 2027 General Elections have been warned to treat the slippery Mount Kenya region with caution.

The warning came from Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Youth League leader John Mark Ketorah and Mukurweini MP John Kaguchia during an interview on Spice FM on Tuesday, January 20.

The two noted that the region largely votes as a bloc and consistently records the highest voter turnout in the country.

“I do not think Mt Kenya politics is what you would call complicated or sophisticated. It is actually very simple,” Kaguchia said, noting that voters in the region are primarily driven by economic and development issues.

The Mukurweini MP argued that Mount Kenya also has a strong ability to mobilize voters during general elections, particularly when it feels threatened or sidelined.

“That is one of the greatest mobilizing factors,” he added.

Kaguchia said early signs of discontent were visible during former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s tenure, especially after the 2018 handshake with Raila Odinga of the then ODM party.

“That is the day the voting bloc started shifting towards William Ruto and that was quite early,” he observed.

He described the region as generally welcoming, pointing to large crowds that attended Odinga’s rallies in Mukurweini and other areas, but cautioned that turnout at rallies does not necessarily translate into votes.

According to Kaguchia, Kenyatta attempted to rally support for Odinga through meetings across the region and even addressed residents in their native language, but the effort fell short.

He said President Ruto benefited from a similar political strategy now being deployed in Mount Kenya by his former deputy Rigathi Gachagua.

“He is so blinded that he can’t see. He can’t understand and he has refused to accept that the mountain has moved,” Kaguchia remarked, arguing that Ruto had destroyed his own relationship with the region.

Kaguchia maintained that Odinga became a political bogeyman in 2018, shaping the outcome of the 2022 elections after Ruto was sidelined.

“People in Mt Kenya detest betrayal. They felt like they owed him,” he said.

He warned that Ruto is now following the same script as his predecessor, only this time as the perpetrator, with Gachagua cast as the victim.

“When William Ruto, who was not really a son of Mt Kenya, was chased away, the people of the mountain revolted. How much more would you expect them to revolt when their own son is chased away and betrayed,” Kaguchia argued.

Ketorah, on his part, described the region as unpredictable, saying it operates using coded political language. He said interactions with young people from the region revealed they had been sold a long-standing narrative portraying Odinga and the Luo community negatively.

“There is no betrayal that Uhuru did to William. By then, he knew that in that equation he could not exist, so he decided to chart his own political path, which is politically allowed,” Ketorah said.

He argued that Ruto has since been vindicated in his fallout with Gachagua, pointing to developments within Gachagua’s Democracy for the Citizens Party (DCP) and its allies.

“This is a man who has confined himself to one region of the country, even though he is now free to move to every corner,” Ketorah noted, adding that Gachagua faces leadership and character challenges.

Ketorah predicted that the region would not abandon the Kenya Kwanza administration, saying residents had moved past the emotional reaction to Gachagua’s removal from government.

Kaguchia, however, insisted that every region responds to different political triggers.

He said claims that Mount Kenya would eventually warm up to Ruto mirrored earlier predictions that Gachagua would fade away shortly after his ouster, which did not happen.

He said stalled projects from the Jubilee administration were only receiving attention as the 2027 election approaches, despite Ruto’s earlier pledge to prioritize them immediately after taking office.

“Mwea farmers have huge rice stocks, yet William Ruto continues to import duty-free rice, even against court orders, while Mwea rice rots in stores,” Kaguchia said.

He accused Ruto of abandoning his earlier stance against using state power to pursue critics, a position he held while serving as deputy president under the Jubilee government.

“They feel William Ruto has perfected the art of persecuting their leaders and that is one of the biggest mobilizing factors today,” Kaguchia added.

Ketorah dismissed claims of persecution by Gachagua’s allies, describing them as imagined and driven by a search for sympathy.