Kibaki and Ruto in secret talks

Cabinet minister William Ruto has been holding private consultations with President Kibaki over implementation of the Waki Report, the Saturday Nation can reveal.

Sources familiar with the meetings said the President may have influenced the Agriculture minister’s sudden change of heart to back implementation of the report which he had earlier vehemently opposed.

Trade minister and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta is said to have attended at least two of the meetings, the last one which was held on Wednesday, the eve of the Cabinet meeting which named a 10-member team to study and set a programme of implementing the Waki recommendations on post-election violence.

An MP who did not want to be quoted discussing presidential matters, said the deliberations may have convinced the Eldoret North MP to abandon his hardline stance against the report in favour of a middle-ground approach.

And in a revelation that is likely to stir political waters, the source said that President Kibaki urged the two ministers to bury their differences and work towards pulling their communities together ahead of the 2012 general elections. 

“The President invited the two ministers to State House for tea on two different occasions over the past three weeks.

Although I cannot tell you in detail what they discussed, I can confirm that the Waki report and the political future of the two leaders was on the table,” the MP said.

Contacted, sources familiar with the President’s official and political calendar could neither confirm nor deny that the meetings had taken place.

An aide of Mr Kenyatta said: “The matter is sensitive and I don’t want to discuss it at this stage. ”

But a Kanu MP close to Mr Kenyatta said the matter is in its formative stages adding that it would not be good to pre-empt it.

“It is true we want to bring Mr Ruto on board but this is just one of our strategies for 2012 and we have several others,” the MP said.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga, whose support for the implementation of the report which calls for the establishment of a tribunal to try those responsible for the post-election violence, was the opposite of what Mr Ruto had earlier campaigned for, said he was unaware of the meetings.

Mr Odinga said: “I am not aware of the meetings between Ruto and the President. However, he is a minister who has a right to meet with the President any time he pleases. If they have met as you say I believe there is nothing sinister behind those meetings.”

The rapport between President Kibaki and Mr Ruto appeared to be having another positive effect on the President’s approval among Rift Valley leaders.

In another surprising development, Rift Valley MPs from the Kalenjin community were this week praising the President for the way he has handled the controversial report which has divided the coalition government down the middle.

Nominated MP Musa Sirma of ODM praised President Kibaki’s call for the report’s implementation to be tempered with mercy.

“When he first made this call, I thought he was just doing it for public relations purposes. But I am now convinced that he really means it. I believe that he has the interests of this country at heart and we ought to support his efforts. That is why we have taken this new stand,” said Mr Sirma.

Another Rift Valley MP, Mr Joshua Kutuny (Cherangany), attributed Mr Ruto’s change of heart to the “cordial working relations between the minister and the President”.

He cited a case three weeks ago when the President praised Mr Ruto as a hardworking minister during an international agricultural meeting in Nairobi.

“That was a subtle welcome to Mr Ruto and to the Kalenjin community to work together with him. The President has actually been trying to reach out to us for a long time. It is time we reached out to him too instead of fighting his government all the time,” said Mr Kutuny.

This rare vote of confidence is particularly interesting given that it is coming from leaders of a community that has stridently opposed the President since he was voted to power six years ago.

It also comes at a time when the President is facing criticism from a section of MPs from his Central Kenya backyard and members of the civic society who accuse him of failing to give a definite direction to the Waki report.

“All these developments should be seen in context of the meetings between the President and the two ministers. And as things stand now, I can assure you that Mr Ruto’s change of heart over the Waki report is not the last significant development you are going to see,” said our source.

Early this week, Mr Ruto made a surprise announcement calling for implementation of the Waki report which calls for a tribunal to try leaders suspected to have instigated the post-election violence which left more than 1,300 people dead and thousands displaced.

Up until then, the minister had trashed the report saying it was based on rumours, innuendos and hearsay.

His new call has been taken up by other Kalenjin MPs among them Mr Julius Kones (Konoin), Mr Benjamin Langat (Ainamoi), Mr Sirma, Mr Isaac Ruto (Chepalungu), Mr Kutuny, Mrs Peris Simam (Eldoret East) and Mr Lucas Chepkitony (Keiyo North).

Despite softening their stance on the report, the leaders insist that they have not changed their positions altogether.

They say they are now fronting a new way of handling the report, a position that is likely to meet wide acceptance across the political divide.

“We have not changed positions. We simply realised that we could not throw the report out of the window and pretend that nothing happened. The truth is that the report raised a number of pertinent issues which we have to grapple with as leaders for the process of national healing and reconciliation to take place,” said Mr Sirma.

Although our source declined to disclose the exact nature of the deal between the President, Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta, a proposal by Mr Chepkitony seems to have gained currency among Kalenjin MPs.

Mr Chepkitony says that a local tribunal with full investigative and prosecutorial powers be formed alongside a truth, justice and reconciliation commission to try people suspected to have funded or planned the violence.

“If we implement it in its current form, the people who have been mentioned in the report will be condemned unfairly. And if we oppose it in toto, the victims will be denied justice. In my view, this is the best way to handle this report,” said Mr Chepkitony.

Mr Sirma said the proposal falls in line with President Kibaki’s repeated call to temper justice with forgiveness when dealing with the report.

The President first hinted during his Kenyatta Day speech that he favours restorative rather than retributive justice as a way of bringing about national healing. 

The entry of Mr Kenyatta into the scene gives a political dimension to the talks between the President and Mr Ruto. Our source disclosed that the President is keen to involve the two ministers in his succession strategy.

“The first step towards this end is to have them talking and convincing their communities that they need to work together. So far, talks between the two ministers are progressing well,” the MP said.