It is now confirmed that Kenyan president William Samuoi Ruto and his erstwhile political rival Raila Amollo Odinga have buried the hatchet and decided to form a common front. However, that has come at the expense of past coalitions, as former members of the Azimio coalition were the most vocal, while the rest have been less assertive, like NARC Kenya and Amani, led by speaker Moses Wetangula and Prime Minister Wycliffe Musalia Midavadi, respectively.
This new pact of Ruto and Raila, while drawn up with lofty statements of intent, lacks specific details. It appears to be more about sharing the national loaf than a concerted effort to tackle youth unemployment and poverty. This article examines the challenges Ruto may face in the 2027 elections and why the future remains uncertain.
After the 2022 presidential elections, Raila’s coalition cried foul and rushed to the Supreme Court to seek relief from overturning the election outcome. That judicial assault came to a cropper, forcing Raila Amollo back to a drawing board. He reverted to what he does best: turning Kenya into a rogue nation or a failed state. Mammoth demos weakened government and the streets were abandoned but that too didn’t work.
However, when Gen Z, who were being sponsored by political forces inside and outside Kenya, came calling, it was clear something had to be done. Gen Z occupied parliament buildings for hours, where they inflicted vandalism, and behind-the-scenes talks began to unify warring sides. The first casualty of the Gen Z uprising was Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who was blamed for funding the Gen Z unrest, but he was not alone.
ODM luminaries were also associated with bankrolling the Gen-Z protests, but for reasons which will come clear much later in this discourse, they became the beneficiaries of the Gen-Z demos! The Gen-Z themselves were casualties of their own making. President Ruto has reshuffled his government many times, but the Gen-Z representatives have not been appointed to the government, unlike their counterparts in Bangladesh, who saw one of their own holding key cabinet positions.
Gen-Z, for their troubles, were tear-gassed, abducted, tortured, maimed and murdered, but those who were watching them on TVs from the comfort of their sitting rooms sneaked in and now have positioned themselves to join the Ruto government and munch the national
cake. Kenyan coalitions are all about eating while cashing in on the plight of the underprivileged to soothe the pain. Those in power tout their coalitions as good news to people with low incomes; this one is no different.
As President Ruto is warming up to Raila, he may have to draw cautionary lessons from the Raila-Moi and Raila-Kibaki coalitions. In both of the cited coalitions, they ended up in disappointment and unmitigated bitterness. The source of the fallout was a failure to fulfil the personal ambition of Raila Amollo Odinga. Raila had anticipated he would be rewarded for
his part and be a natural successor of the then-putative presidents, but when those leaders earmarked Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila was not amused.
In 2002 Raila was pissed off when President Daniel Arap Moi tapped the then-political neophyte Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta to succeed him. Raila bolted and led the Kanu exodus, which caused irreparable damage to Kanu, leading to its massive election loss of a ratio of one to two to NARC led by Mwai Kibaki. Raila, for his toil, was spoiled by the Ministry of Infrastructure, but it didn’t last long as his legendary tug of wars with Kibaki led to another stampede to opposition proper.
In 2007, Raila challenged Mwai Kibaki but was declared a presidential winner, culminating in election spontaneous violence never seen since independence. Thousands were killed or maimed, and the intervention of the international community led by the former UN secretary-general Koffi Annan led to the formation of a government of national unity. Raila became Kenya’s first prime minister. The coalition barely survived because Raila insisted Kenya was being led by two equal principals, but Kibaki would have none of that. The alliance survived, but it was clear Raila’s presidential ambition had to wait to be fought for on another day.
In 2012, Raila saw his presidential ambitions interrupted for a decade by Uhuru Kenyatta despite the latter being stalked by the ICC criminal indictments together with his deputy president, William Samuoi Ruto. Raila infamously quoted Ruto who had remarked “…we were not vague when we said the Hague way….” Raila kept taunting both Uhuru and Ruto, saying that they should withdraw from the elections and focus on clearing their names at Hague, where the ICC headquarters are located. Paradoxically, Raila and Kibaki weren’t indicted by the ICC, leading many to suspect the decision to slap Uhuru and Ruto with crimes against humanity was designed to aid Raila’s presidential bid. It was what Raila’s fanatics lauded as “compensation for a stolen 2007 presidential election.”
After the 2012 presidential election loss, Raila marched to the Supreme Court in a hope of overturning the electoral victory of Uhuru- Ruto. He once again was unsuccessful. In a matter of fate, Raila didn’t make a cut too in the 2017 presidential elections and his judicial challenges came to nothing forcing him much later into an unholy alliance with Uhuru Kenyatta tearing apart the Uhuru-Ruto coalition into shards.
In the elections of 2022, Uhuru Kenyatta sided with Raila Amollo Odinga against William Samuoi Ruto in the presidential election, but once again, Raila was narrowly defeated. Raila’s judicial efforts were extremely controversial because the Kenyan election law, which is the most transparent, inclusive, and verifiable in the world, has given him many levers to pull, but he has reneged to exercise them. For instance, the law says every polling station agent will sign presidential form 34A and be afforded a copy of that form for tallying and verification at the political party national level. Raila didn’t have any polling agents in Mount Kenya but later claimed his votes were stolen! How could he have known that unless he had collected presidential form 34A from every polling station in the said region? He didn’t, so his rigged election allegations were merely speculative and fabricated.
He never attached copies of Form 34A from Mountain Kenya polling stations to solidify his case. In a manner that showed he was not a Democrat, he asked IEBC to bail him
out by furnishing him with the same Form 34A that he should have collected from his polling agents! His whole petition depended on the IEBC records instead of his own! How pathetic! Raila alleged that the IEBC servers were tampered with by foreign agents, but had he been diligent, he could have made his case using the form 34A available at every polling station. Only a comparison of the form 34As he had and those displayed by the IEBC portal was sufficient to make his case. The outrageous claim of opening up the IEBC servers permanently blotted his legacy as the political titan of Kenyan multiparty democracy. Others might disagree, but history is a better teacher than all.
Kenya Supreme Court squandered an opportunity to make it abundantly clear that the presidential petition should be founded on forms 34A, which were supposed to be collected from the polling stations but cannot be mounted from IEBC servers that were created by the same forms 34A from the polling stations. A failure of the Kenyan highest Court to lay bare the constraints of the presidential petition armed Raila with a cudgel to blame the Supreme Court for a refusal to open up the servers, albeit the Court had permitted Raila experts with reading rights of the whole IEBC servers. Raila had wanted his experts to have editing rights that could have compromised the IEBC servers. The Court refused to grant such editing rights, which would have potentially corrupted the servers and stiffened Raila’s petition towards election annulment and rerun.
Raila lambasted the IEBC servers to obfuscate his campaign managerial incompetence. Some of his astute supporters were also critical of Raila picking on one Junet Mohamed to manage campaign funds. Some alleged the money allocated for campaigns never went to pay the Mountain Kenya polling station agents. This was why not a single presidential form 34A was collected from the vote-rich Mountain Kenyan region, incurably undermining the Raila presidential petition. Raila diehards urged the critics to lie low for the sake of the ODM unity. The matter has never been thoroughly investigated by ODM for fear of rupturing into fiefdoms the political party.
After the Gen-Z’s “Ruto must go” incendiary, Ruto was too weak to resist Raila’s overtures, and he capitulated. Before Ruto and Raila got together, Uhuru had his own grievances to resolve with Ruto. Ruto dumped some of his Kenya Kwanza stalwarts to ingratiate three of Uhuru’s former cabinet appointees, some deeply steeped in the venal allegations. Beforehand, in order to show goodwill, Ruto sacrificed his deputy president on the grounds of promoting tribalism while Rigathi Gachagua only insisted that their own Gikuyu MOU be respected. With Gachagua impeached and sacked from the government, the voices that stood between Ruto and Raila joining hands grew hoarse and hushed. Gachagua supporters in the parliament witnessed their key positions handed to the ODM insiders, with those still in the government to follow suit in a few weeks to come. The rout was brutal and unrelenting.
While the Ruto-Raila coalition may provide the Ruto regime with some breathing space, it is not an answer to the myriad of challenges facing Kenya today. Other smaller members of the coalition of Kenya Kwanza headed by William Ruto are beginning to feel the heat. For example, with ODM now in the kitchen, many of Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetangula’s key lieutenants sense skewered of their political fortunes to pave the way for Raila’s sidekicks. Will they not feel cheated and betrayed? Will they support Ruto when he has abandoned them in an hour of need? Will they not seek a greener pasture elsewhere?
Uhuru Kenyatta, too has brought his minions into the government, and now the Kikuyu have 9 out of 22 cabinet secretaries. Further accommodation of ODM luminaries will mean edging out not only Gachagua sympathisers but also other outlier members of the Kenya Kwanza coalition. That will lead to gushing cracks in the Kenya Kwanza coalition, and Raila excels in sundering such agreements. Whoever said divide and rule must have Raila Amollo Odinga at the back of his mind.
In the parliament, ODM now claims they are a majority party deserving of producing the leader of government business in the parliament despite speaker Wetangula ruling to the contrary. Raila and his ODM may be angling for a fifty-fifty distribution of government plum jobs that cannot be achieved without Ruto dumping his other members of the coalition in the Kenya Kwanza coalition. This may explain why both Mudavadi and Wetangula were notable absentees during the launching of the Ruto-Raila MOU. For obvious reasons, Mudavadi and Wetangula feel cheated by Ruto and will have a tough time defending Ruto and their associations with him when their own tribesmen are being kicked out of the eating high table to allow the “Wajaluo” to eat on their behalf.
Kenyan Gen-Z will soon discover their fight has been hijacked by the same politicians who have been behind their economic pain and may have to figure out how to confront this new harsh political reality. Raila snubbed Eugene Wamalwa, Kalonzo Musyoka and Martha Karua because the trio could not give him what he wanted: the presidency of Kenya. He betrays both Moi and Kibaki ,so the trio should not be surprised. It is all about Raila’s presidential dreams, or you are fired!
In 2027, Ruto too will have to adjust himself to life without Raila as he himself has conceded when he confessed this pact is not “Ruto for president – 2027” but a coalition of the willing to get to that 2027 presidential bridge. Ruto knows too well in the 2027 election, and assuming Raila is still around and healthy, he will attempt to unseat him. Ruto cannot replace either Mountain Kenya or Western Kenya votes with Luo Nyanza. He must dribble his way in a manner that he will retain sufficient votes from all corners of Kenya to secure his 2027 presidential election bid.
That may mean telling Raila in his face that the MOU between UDA and ODM cannot unravel the MOUs inside the Kenya Kwanza coalition. Without doing that, Ruto will see his reelection bid hanging in the balance. How Ruto manages a variety of coalitions will determine whether he will keep his job come 2027.
The fifty-fifty pact between Ruto and Raila is a 2027 election suicide, and that may dilate why the MOU is intentionally vague, unlike what Ruto once remarked when he said in 2011: “We are not vague when we said the Hague way…” This time around, Ruto was conveniently vague when he entered an agreement with Raila and ODM. The real reason for being vague is that he has too little left to placate them.
Read more analysis by Rutashubanyuma Nestory
