I'll take on Raila says Ruto

SUNDAY NATION: Do you have a plan to run for president?

WILLIAM RUTO: I do. I believe that when the time comes, I will take the necessary steps.

If and when we get there, what will you do differently from what your colleagues in Cabinet or the three presidents we’ve had?

I will discuss my candidature at that point in time. If I didn’t have a plan to turn around this country, I would have no reason to aspire for high office. I’m a young man and I believe that whoever wants to be president must have a plan or they should go and do something else.

There those who think that your plans for the presidency are a threat to the ODM you worked so hard to build. How do your ambitions fit in to the bigger Orange plan?

It’s only people who have a dictatorial mind who would view the candidature of anybody, let alone me, as being a threat to the party. A democratic party must have room for everybody and must have room for competition.

Do you feel that there has been any tensions or cardinal differences of opinion between you and the Prime Minister?

The PM and I sometimes hold different opinions on different issues just the same way I hold different opinions with other ministers. That’s a democratic right. I respect his opinion and I’m sure he respects mine.

Is your working relationship at its best? That’s a very scientific question .... It’s good but, it could be better.

What is your relationship with UDM? It’s been said it’s your fall-back party. UDM is an affiliate party of ODM, just like Narc and PDP.

There has been talk of the Kikuyu-Kalenjin alliance and then the Vice-President elevated it to the Kikuyu-Kalenjin-Kamba alliance. Is there anything to it?

That question is best answered by the VP. I have made views known right from the days of KK. When we were engaged in the exercise of resettling people in Burnt Forest, we were accused on trying to form an alliance between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin when it was purely leaders coming together to ask people to go back to their farms so that we can move on as a country. No discussions have been held on any alliance. We need an alliance of all people of goodwill to deal with the challenges we face as a nation.

How far have these reconciliation efforts gone?

A lot of ground has been covered. The government has moved a notch higher and bought land for IDPs. We went out of our way as government to support IDPs by giving them seeds and fertiliser. The government has done the best it could to resettle IDPs and that programme is at its tail end. Of course, a lot of discussion has gone on among citizens in affected areas on how to forestall a recurrence.

Are we out of the woods?

What happened in 2007/2008 was very unfortunate. It cast a very dark cloud over our nation. Having said that, we need to put in place a mechanism that will ensure that we don’t go back there. That’s why the government and Parliament are seeing to it that we have an electoral process that enjoys the confidence of citizens.

There have been different suggestions on how the post-election violence suspects should be dealt with. What’s your view?

There is a notion that the way to stop a recurrence is to punish those who may have participated in committing the wrongs. But that’s not the whole truth. Punishing those who played a part is part of the solution but ensuring that a repeat of a few people manipulating an electoral commission and installing a commission of their liking and manipulating the whole process ... this is where the solution lies.

Even if you punish those who committed the atrocities in 2007 and 2008 and you leave room for another set of people to manipulate the next election, you cannot guarantee that there will not be a recurrence. The way to insulate the country is to ensure that we have a foolproof mechanism of guaranteeing a fair election. Until you have a fair election, you cannot guarantee stability.

The debate has been broken down to whether it’s The Hague or a local tribunal to try those suspected of crimes. What’s your position?

The Cabinet took a position which we are collectively bound to that a reformed Judiciary deals with cases that are within their purview and scope. Secondly, being signatories to the ICC, they don’t need any invitation. If the ICC carries out its own investigations and finds people who are culpable, nothing will stop them from discharging their mandate. They will do their investigations and not the kangaroo investigations of the Commission of Inquiry into Post-election Violence. Equally, it’s important to settle what we can using the TJRC.

Where would you like to see this country before the next elections?

One, that all effort should be made to make the country food secure. Within the next two years, we should have a food secure economy. Two, we should expand our economy to take on board more youth and in the next one year, we should agree on a new constitution. And that, I think, is doable.