Aspirants court a hard-to-get Ruto

Two weeks ago, Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka asked Eldoret North MP William Ruto to enter into an alliance with him to enable them to win the March 4 election.

He told a rally at the installation of the new Kalenjin Council of Elders chairman, Mr Josiah Sang, at Kapkatet Stadium in Kericho County that time was running out and they risked losing to their competitors if they did not unite. (READ: VP Kalonzo, Ruto hint at an alliance)

“We want to form an alliance with Ruto’s URP so that we can take over power next year. The time for that arrangement is now,” Mr Musyoka said.

And last Saturday, it was the turn of Prime Minister Raila Odinga to court the former Higher Education minister.

At a homecoming party for Industrialisation minister Henry Kosgey in Kapsabet, Mr Odinga announced that he was ready to work with Mr Ruto again.

The message was significant coming as it did after elders called on the PM to name Mr Kosgey as his running mate.

The two events underscore how Mr Ruto’s emerging image as the kingmaker in next year’s elections, by virtue of his popularity in the populous Rift Valley, is shaping the presidential campaigns.

Highly placed sources

Conversations with highly placed sources in the PM’s campaign revealed that Mr Odinga considers the Rift Valley critical to his presidential bid and would do “everything, including bringing Ruto back to his fold”.

Meanwhile, Mr Ruto has been playing hard to get, saying he would be comfortable with a post-election alliance, rather than a pre-election one.

“We want all our friends in the G7 alliance to solidify their support base and look for friends across the country so that we can form an alliance after the polls,” Mr Ruto told the Sunday Nation on Friday.

The Eldoret North MP has also consistently rebuffed entreaties — including three meetings reportedly held in various locations in Nairobi between the PM’s allies and the MP — for him to rejoin his erstwhile ally-turned-bitter foe.

“I am not the one who talked of us working together. All I know is that I am focused on my campaign,” he said on the VP’s Kapkatet meeting.

The United Republican Party de facto leader has laid out an ambitious plan to bag a majority of parliamentary seats in the coming election. The plan, politicians close to Mr Ruto reveal, targets at least 100 MPs and half of the Senate.

The thinking is that if he doesn’t win the presidency, the seats will hand him and his party the powerful post of majority leader as well as a strong bargaining position in a post-election coalition.

“Our battle is two-pronged,” says Dujis MP Aden Duale, URP’s spokesperson and a Ruto confidant. “We want to win both the presidency and majority leader. If we do not get the presidency, our next achievable option is the majority leader.”

The leader of the majority party shall be the person who heads the largest party or coalition of parties in the National Assembly. According to Article 28 of the Constitution, the majority leader will be the second most powerful person in Parliament after the Speaker.

It would require the cooperation of the majority leader for the president to secure parliamentary support for government-sponsored Bills and approval of key appointments or decisions.

“The majority leader can also impeach the president with the numbers. They are calculating that it is better you have Mr Ruto as a running mate and give majority leader to another leader so as to craft a winning team, than have him out there shooting at you,” explained Kabianga University College lecturer Herbert Kerre.

The strategy is for Mr Ruto to first consolidate the Kalenjin Rift Valley vote and then reach out to the small communities mostly pastoralists.

The last census ranked the Kalenjin — a conglomeration of 11 ethnic groups — as Kenya’s third largest community after the Kikuyu and the Luhya.

“However, in terms of voting patterns, the Kalenjin are the second biggest constituency after the Kikuyu. Look at the 2007 figures and you will see a constituency which a serious presidential candidate will ignore at his or her own peril,” said media law scholar Kipkirui K’Telwa.

ODM election board sources reveal that the Kalenjin contributed about 1.5 million votes to Mr Odinga’s presidential bid in 2007.

The Ruto campaign is particularly emboldened by these numbers. And with the approval of new boundaries, the region will have 75 elected MPs, up from the current 49. Most of these constituencies are occupied by members of Mr Ruto’s community.

Mr Ruto is also banking on the support of the Turkana with seven seats, North Eastern with 21, Samburu, Upper Eastern (Isiolo, Marsabit, Moyale), sections of the Coast and some Maa constituencies like Narok South, West and Emurua Dikirr carved out of Kilgoris.

The latter three constituencies are predominantly occupied by members of the populous Kipsigis sub-tribe of the Kalenjin.

And in a race in which one must garner 25 per cent of votes in at least 24 counties besides bagging more than 50 per cent of the votes cast, Mr Ruto also has support in seven counties occupied by his Kalenjin community.

They are West Pokot, Elgeyo Marakwet, Uasin Gishu, Nandi, Baringo, Kericho and Bomet. None of the other presidential aspirants enjoys this advantage.

URP chairman Francis ole Kaparo says pastoralist communities occupy more than 70 per cent of the country and that their populations combined beat any alliance of big communities.

“That’s how we plan to win,” said Mr Kaparo. Political observers also attribute the new-found interest in Mr Ruto to his charisma.

“He is perhaps the most energetic of all the present campaigners. He is also a self-made politician who, together with (Lugari MP Cyrsus) Jirongo, saved Moi’s Kanu from being vanquished by the opposition in 1992,” said Mr K’Telwa.

This assessment is lent credence by the PM’s former adviser Miguna Miguna. “Ruto is charismatic, articulate, hardworking, rumbustious and ambitious.

"He is also extremely restless. Unlike both Raila and Mudavadi, he is also a teetotaller and thus less distracted from political campaigning,” writes Mr Miguna in his controversial memoirs, Peeling Back the Mask: A Quest for Justice in Kenya.

Wealthy

Sources familiar with Mr Ruto’s businesses also say the MP is wealthy and can bankroll a presidential campaign with little assistance as well as attract financiers he inherited from the Kanu-era presidential campaigns.

“Big money is the oil with which serious presidential campaigns are run. Recent research indicates that the cost of running a presidential campaign has leapfrogged to Sh12 billion, more than double what President Mwai Kibaki and Mr Odinga spent in 2007,” said Moi University don Prof Peter Simatei.

Mr Ruto is also considered a shrewd political mobiliser. “A political student of retired President Daniel Moi and his party leader-turned-nemesis Mr Odinga, he is the driving force of the so-called G7 alliance, the one with mobilisation acumen,” Nairobi University political scientist Adams Oloo said.

So intensely has Mr Ruto captured the imagination of the country that veteran journalist Philip Ochieng has coined the term “rutolitics” to refer to “whatever masquerades as politics in Kenya”. Pundits add that Mr Ruto’s use of symbolism has served him well.

“Politics is about symbolism and branding. Even though Ruto and his ilk criticise Raila for using football imagery and proverbs, he is keen to fashion his own patent to market himself to the public. Thus his famous cap with the country’s national colours,” said Dr Oloo.