Major changes in the offing as Uhuru crafts new Cabinet

President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto have started the process of crafting a new cabinet, with up to seven cabinet secretaries set to face the axe.

This is even as the Jubilee duo wait to see if their October 26 win will be challenged in court, the Sunday Nation has learnt.

The seven are seen not to have delivered on their mandate with others considered not to be politically savvy.

It is understood that their positions are likely to be filled with individuals who come with more political capital.

LOBBYING
Though the crafting of new candidates remains a tightly controlled affair, lobbying has been intense, with some candidates approaching influential relatives of both the President and the deputy president seeking consideration. 

Sources, who spoke in confidence, also indicated that the President is planning to exhaust the number of cabinet secretaries to the maximum of 22.

Currently, there are 19 cabinet secretaries, meaning the President can still have three more dockets hived from the current ones.

This is part of President Kenyatta’s delicate balancing act in a term riddled with an annulled poll, and a disputed fresh election that was boycotted by his main opponent, Mr Raila Odinga.

INCLUSIVITY

At the same time, there is the political requirement to make strategic appointments for the Jubilee Party and for succession politics, with his deputy at the center of a 2022 State House bid.

“I hope he does (fill the 22 posts). I do not even see the reason why he left them not filled in his first term.

"Those posts will give us an opportunity to provide an all-inclusive government, one of the pillars of our campaigns,” Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung’wah told the Sunday Nation.

Talk of an expanded executive has dominated Jubilee Party circles, with a feeling that the 17 posts — which were later increased to 19 — that President Kenyatta had filled were not enough.

PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES
The Constitution only allows a minimum of 14, and a maximum of 22 cabinet secretary posts, but does not apportion a figure to the number of principal secretaries that can be appointed — another avenue the Jubilee team is looking at to increase the positions to be dished out.

But while increasing the posts will please the many politicians and chief campaigners promised top jobs, it will also have an eye on the 2022 State House race that DP Ruto is seeking to influence so that he can leverage on when the time comes.

Though Senate Majority Leader Kipchumba Murkomen said the cabinet to be formed will help Mr Ruto’s race if it performs, he warned against succession talk in the appointments.

“If Jubilee delivers, no matter whether the Deputy President had a hand in the appointment of the cabinet secretaries, he will still be an automatic beneficiary when he runs for the top job in 2022,” Mr Murkomen said.

NASA DEFECTORS
The Elgeyo Marakwet Senator argued that the next Cabinet will be one that is representative of the country and its diversity, comments echoed by Baringo North MP William Cheptumo.

“As the President considers the things he has promised, it will all be in the interest of making an all-inclusive Kenya, which is more than just a Jubilee manifesto promise, it is a constitutional requirement,” Mr Cheptumo said.

President Kenyatta amassed politicians from the Raila Odinga-led National Super Alliance (Nasa) after the August 8 presidential poll was annulled by the Supreme Court in a landmark ruling on September 1.

The Head of State then went on a shopping spree, bringing in poll losers from the Nasa side, those from his own party, and added them to an already long list of those that had lost in the competitive Jubilee Party nominations.

PROFESSIONALS
While this will bring in the challenge of choosing the new CSs, it will also mean a more political cabinet.

An ambitious President Kenyatta had entered State House ready to go with a fully professional Cabinet, even instructing allies Najib Balala and Charity Ngilu not to involve themselves in politics.

That has changed, with the CSs now in full-blown political mood and, sometimes, openly campaigning for them.

With the bringing in of Mr Eugene Wamalwa (Water) and Devolution’s Mwangi Kiunjuri after a reshuffle in 2015, and former Kericho Senator Charles Keter (Energy) and former Malindi MP Dan Kazungu for the Mining docket, and the subsequent involvement of technocrats Joe Mucheru of ICT and Sicily Kariuki of Gender and Public Service, the next Cabinet can only follow that line.

ELECTIONS
In the run up to the polls, President Kenyatta consistently promised them that there was enough space for all of them in government and that they would all be accommodated, winners and losers.  

“I want to thank those of us who were part of our team who did not make it.

"And I take this opportunity through you to assure them that my government will not leave them behind,” he told elected leaders a week after the annulled polls.

Already, the election of former Bungoma Governor Ken Lusaka as Senate Speaker has narrowed the chances of other western Kenya politicians who joined the Jubilee camp for the polls, given that Water Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa and his Environment counterpart Judi Wakhungu are from the same area.

ABABU VS OTUOMA
Though former Vihiga Governor Moses Akaranga, and his challenger Yusuf Chanzu, as well as Bungoma Orange Democratic Movement gubernatorial candidate Alfred Khangati, have joined the bandwagon, it is the jostling between Busia Governor hopeful Paul Otuoma and former Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba that has caught the eyes of many in western Kenya.

For Mr Namwamba and Mr Otuoma, it is the battle of neighbouring constituencies that had full ministerial posts in the Grand Coalition government where Mr Odinga named Mr Otuoma for the full five years, with Mr Namwamba serving a short five-month stint with the flag before the 2013 election.

Mr Namwamba joined President Kenyatta’s re-election bid early this year, while Mr Otuoma, who unsuccessfully contested the Busia governor seat as an independent candidate after losing the ODM ticket, joined after the August 8 elections.

RUTO AND MUNYA
None of them answered Sunday Nation’s queries but have both spent time campaigning for President Kenyatta, with Mr Namwamba even leading a caucus known as the Council of Kenyan Professionals, that is mainly made up of poll losers, in a bid to raise his profile.

There is also the case of the Coast, where the President has won over former Mombasa Senator Omar Hassan, former Tana River Governor Hussein Dado, his Taita Taveta counterpart John Mruttu, as well as Jubilee politicians who lost in the poll, including the outspoken Suleiman Shahbal of Mombasa and Kilifi’s Gideon Mung’aro.

But it is in the choice between former powerful governors Isaac Ruto of Bomet and his Meru counterpart Peter Munya that the Jubilee leadership faces its biggest balancing test, yet.

SUCCESSION
While their decamping to Jubilee Party after a brief dalliance with the opposition was a plus, their known political ambitions in the 2022 race complicates President Kenyatta’s choice, but even more so those of the DP, a man who wants the same seat the former county chiefs have said they will go for.

But Mr Ichung’wah, the Kikuyu MP, does not think this as a problem.

“Why is the fact that Jubilee has many people jostling for the seats going to be a problem? We have promised to be as representative as possible, and it is what we will do,” Mr Ichung’wa said.

Mr Cheptumo was more diplomatic: “I think we all need to just understand that the spaces are limited, and that when one of us is appointed, we learn to appreciate. We cannot all be in one position.”

Those who fail to make it to the Cabinet are likely to be considered for plum diplomatic and parastatal positions.