Rift leaders unsettled over JAP deal despite putting on brave faces

The declaration by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto that URP and TNA will be collapsed into a new political party has sent shockwaves across the Rift Valley, with many local leaders fearing it could be a plot to silence them.

Whereas URP politicians are putting on brave faces in public that all is well, in private, they are at pains to reassure their electorate that dismantling their ‘house’ to join a common abode called Jubilee Alliance Party (JAP) will not backfire on them some day.

The elderly members are particularly concerned that this route may prove fatal when President Uhuru Kenyatta’s succession politics takes centre-stage ahead of 2022, should he be re-elected in 2017.

They fear President Uhuru’s men may hold them hostage at the eleventh hour, with no time to jump to a formidable political vehicle, effectively locking them in JAP against their wishes.

MOI PROPHESY

Fresh in their minds is a warning by retired President Daniel arap Moi when he cautioned them against ditching Kanu for ODM-K in October 2006.

“Mkalenjin, mtu akikuambia ubomoe nyumba yako umfuate, fikiria mara mbili (Kalenjins, be cautious of one who urges you to demolish your house and follow him; there may be hidden cards),”Mr Moi said at a time the opposition under the command of Raila Odinga had just had a resounding victory in the referendum on the Constitution the previous year.

Riding on that momentum, the opposition formed ODM-K. And Mr Ruto, then Kanu secretary-general, having been on the same side with Mr Odinga in the referendum campaigns, launched an all-out onslaught against his mentor (Mr Moi), herding the community to the new party.

Threatened by the surging ODM-K tide, Mr Moi, a shrewd politician who held sway over the community’s politics for close to a half a century, told the Kalenjin voters that they would regret leaving the grand old party.

Some of the politicians opposed to JAP are quietly invoking this line by Mr Moi to push their case through.

So far, the message appears to resonate with sections of residents with the acrimonious style Mr Ruto left the Orange party in the run-up to the 2013 elections being a good illustration. To them, this was the fulfilment of the Moi prophesy.

“Our people should not be cheated because we have been down this road before,” Kuresoi South MP Zakayo Cheruiyot warns.

TOP-DOWN ADMINISTRATION

Mr Cheruiyot wondered why parties have to be dissolved yet the previous arrangement between URP and TNA worked just fine in the 2013 elections.

“They say if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. URP delivered votes to Jubilee in the last elections just like it had promised, what has changed that we must be herded into a vehicle? There are many loose ends here,” he told the Sunday Nation.

The lawmaker believes this suspicion will make it hard to sell JAP in the Rift Valley.

“It will be very difficult to market JAP here. It is a product of top-down mode of administration which cannot work. I do not see a euphoria coming out of this move; it is a mere act of political manipulation,” he said.

The dissenting voices feel that the deputy president is being gullible in this engagement with TNA. To them, you never bestow so much trust in an ally, however forthright they may appear.

But JAP vice-chairman David Murathe said the idea of merging the two parties was as a result of the growing need to assure URP that TNA supporters will back Mr Ruto’s presidential bid after Mr Kenyatta retires.

“There are ongoing consultations to address all these fears. What the public needs to know is that JAP aims to ensure that all Jubilee supporters back the deputy president after President Kenyatta’s term in 2022,” Mr Murathe said.

FEAR IS JUSTIFIED

Prof Fredrick Wanyama, the Director of the School of Development and Strategic Studies at Maseno University, says the fear among URP members is valid.

“The fear is justified given the kind of sentiments we have heard from some TNA members. They are talking of 2022 elections as if 2017 is a foregone conclusion. The interesting thing is that they’re already putting conditions, reminding the DP that they have the numbers and that he will have to pick one of them to be his running mate. Such sentiments should really worry them,” he holds.

The don thinks the new party could be more a TNA idea than it is URP’s.

“To me, the creation of JAP was a strategy engineered by TNA to deal with a possible fallout between now and 2017 emanating from a number of issues such as the outcome of Ruto’s case at The Hague.”

Mr Cheruiyot is not alone as others like Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto feel the views of URP members were never considered in the whole plan.

“There is no way some people can lock themselves in a room and decide on what political party should be our umbrella for the 2017 General Election,” the governor says.

Mr Cheruiyot said Jubilee’s “unfulfilled” promises will be the first roadblock to the new party in his constituency and beyond.

“We are in the midterm yet the promises made to our people during campaigns have not been met. Road repairs stopped when President Kibaki retired, maize farmers are a neglected lot as those they regard as their leaders are busy creating wealth.  It is the same story with tea farmers,” he said.

The Sunday Nation has also learnt of a “consultative” rally that is still at the concept stage by those opposed to JAP that is supposed to take place at the Kapkatet grounds in Bomet.

The meeting, the organisers said, is meant to decide whether to support JAP or chart a different political direction.

But Elgeyo-Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen dismissed the prospects of a political schism in Rift Valley because of JAP.

“We are not prophets to postulate on what will happen in 2022; it would be far-fetched to engage in such kind of a debate,” he said.

Mr Murkomen sought to justify why JAP was formed.

“We needed JAP to avoid any divisions that may arise in the coalition now and in future. Let me also say that some of the people opposed to it may not even be politicians come 2022, I mean elections come with a new crop of leaders.”

URP secretary-general Fred Muteti agrees with the senator.

“Our leaders contested the presidency on a platform of unity; JAP is yet another step to firmly unite all Kenyans. It is the vehicle for 2017 that will propel President Kenyatta and his deputy back to State House.”