Ruto is Kenya’s answer to Kagame, Zenawi, too bad about his baggage

Here is an example of the difference a result-oriented and practical leader can make in ordinary people’s lives.

A young relation of mine sat his fourth form exams last year. Today, he is in the second month of his college studies at a public university.

This is a consequence of the double intake system William Ruto introduced during his time at the ministry of Higher Education.

Before that, students would languish at home for up to 18 to 24 months before reporting to college due to a creaky and inefficient admissions process.

In one single move, Mr Ruto changed that by ordering a double intake of college students when he first went to the ministry of Higher Education, saving thousands of youth a lot of valuable time.

It was one of the accomplishments he boasted about on his appearance on NTV’s Agenda Kenya show last week. A critic would dismiss Mr Ruto as a politician who talks a good game but who might disappoint if elected.

Different from competitors

Yet Mr Ruto is different from his competitors because in making undertakings, he leans heavily on his record during his short time in office in the last couple of years.

He points to his time at Agriculture where there was a big push to boost food production through simple initiatives like providing inputs to farmers swiftly and the more ambitious large-scale irrigation projects about which we hear little since he left Kilimo House.

His record of visible achievements gives the promises he has been making on the campaign trail – cheap credit for the youth and women along the CDF model, more technical colleges and aligning the education system with the job market, investing in food security – a ring of plausibility.

Mr Ruto displays an ambition that offers hints of the iron-willed leaders of the Asian Tigers who turned around their countries in a short period of time through determined and focused leadership.

He has echoes of another “anti-reformist”, Tom Mboya, who dismantled the independence Constitution while writing an economic framework that was borrowed by leaders from Malaysia and further afield.

Yet Mr Ruto’s candidature confronts voters with a dilemma. I have never met the fellow. But just from watching his body language on television and seeing the impatience he displays with interlocutors, it is clear he has an authoritarian streak.

This is not a fatal flaw. It puts him in the same tradition as Meles Zenawi and Paul Kagame, two strong-men who delivered the rapid economic growth rates Mr Ruto says he aims for while restricting their citizen’s freedoms.

To an extent, voters would have to decide between the constitutional and legal changes offered by the traditional “reformists” and the social and economic transformation the likes of Mr Ruto promise.

The ideal would be someone who can deliver both; but none of the candidates from the “big five” tribes seriously offer that and Kenyans will not consider anyone outside their circle in March.

Grave dilemma

The second dilemma is a graver one. For all their merits, Messrs Ruto and Uhuru Kenyatta must ask themselves what cost they will ask their supporters and Kenyans to bear in the event they are elected.

Whatever one thinks about the ICC process, the quality of the evidence Ocampo gathered or lack of it and the various forces at play, the fact is the ICC cannot be wished away.

Electing an ICC suspect at this point would usher in a period of instability that would be seriously disruptive.

Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta are both very strong candidates. But they would do the nation a favour if they postponed their ambitions until 2017.

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