Kinjuri’s return and Uhuru’s 2017 arithmetic

Kenyans had last heard about politician Mwangi Kiunjuri when he was named for alleged involvement in the post-election violence of 2007/2008 in the collapsed International Criminal Court case against President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Before then, Mr Kiunjuri had been in the headlines as an Assistant Minister publicly fighting his boss, Mrs Charity Ngilu, after opportunistically declaring himself a whistleblower in the war against corruption at Maji House.

Many thought his was a case of the pot blackguarding the kettle because his cronies had been left out of the tender gravy train by an increasingly assertive and aggressive Mrs Ngilu.

But last week Mr Kiunjuri, who lost in his bid for governor of Laikipia County in 2013, came in from the cold, oblivion and ignominy with a mighty and loud bang catapulted, as he was, straight into the inner sanctum of power.

In a surprising and confounding move, President Kenyatta nominated Mr Kiunjuri Cabinet Secretary to the favoured and expansive, powerful and generously funded, Ministry of Devolution and Planning.

Mr Kiunjuri is to replace the systems-anchored and blueprint-guided Ms Anne Waiguru, hitherto the President’s right and left hand man in government and trusted advisor.

The two are as different from each other as day is from night.

As a political operative, Mr Kiunjuri is a bruiser and not different from scrap-happy, chauvinistic and venom-spewing Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria.

Therefore, everybody sat up and took notice; everybody took another look at the new-look Cabinet because something else, perhaps more significant, could be in there.

No, Mr Kiunjuri’s meteoric rise simply anchored the changes to Mr Kenyatta’s evolving government with an eye on 2017 General Election.

There is an increasing politicisation of what many had vouched would be a technocrat-dominated Cabinet.

RECLAIMING THE OLD WAYS

Indeed in 2013, the President and his Deputy William Ruto swore that they would be the only politicians in the Cabinet.

Mrs Ngilu and Mr Najib Balala similarly swore they had ceased to be politicians immediately they were nominated.

Mr Balala may have eschewed politics, not so Mrs Ngilu and newly appointed Water Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa behaves every way like the minister of old – a politician member of the Executive using his position to feather his political pad and advance the President’s cause.

So apart from Mr Kiunjuri, the President nominated two more politicians to the Executive, namely Kericho Senator Charles Keter (Energy) and Malindi MP Dan Kazungu (Mining).

The elevation of Mr Keter, who is Mr Ruto’s dependable sidekick, was unexpected.

But the grapevine had been buzzing with word that the President’s governing Jubilee Alliance would sooner rather than later poach a Coast-based opposition MP and trigger a by-election to test whether the ground had shifted from the rival Coalition for Reform and Democracy (Cord).

Now there will be two by-elections, but it is the one in Malindi that will attract the most attention because in 2013, Cord eclipsed Jubilee at the Coast and President and Deputy have been campaigning there to reverse the fortunes.

But this could change if over in Kericho, Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto teamed up with Cord to run an opposition candidate in the hostile Jubilee backyard.

Why did the Deputy President cut a gloomy and remote figure as the President read out the Cabinet list a couple of feet away from his feet?

LEADESHIP SHIFTS

He more likely was not amused that in one fell swoop his first choice of Cabinet secretaries Davis Chirchir, Felix Koskei and Kazungu Kambi were sent packing with Mr Michael Kamau and Mrs Ngilu after the President fingered them of corruption early in the year. One is judged by the company one keeps.

The DP’s other lieutenant, the hardworking and diligent Mrs Phyllis Kandie, had her East African Affairs, Tourism and Commerce docket whittled down to East African Affairs and Labour.

Lucrative and enviable Tourism became an independent outfit under Mr Balala who has headed it before.

Labour, like Health, Land and Education are sensitive, controversial and problem-laden ministries.

So the President head-hunted affable Dr Cleopa Mailu from the Nairobi Hospital where he has been CEO to run Health.

Doctors across the land applauded the appointment.

Dr Fred Matiang’i, who has had a baptism of fire at Information Communication and Technology and at Land in an acting capacity, must now be in good temperament to replace Prof Jacob Kaimenyi at Education as the dentist went to the Ardhi House, the home of powerful cartels and brokers.