How new UhuRuto outfit might affect Kenya’s politics

The glitz surrounding last week’s launch of the Jubilee Party was designed to present it as a major turning point in Kenya’s political history. Time will tell if this is the case. Beyond what was presented, it is useful to analyse what the launch means and how this might affect the country’s politics.

The first aspect of the new Jubilee Party is the merger between President Kenyatta’s TNA and his Deputy William Ruto’s United Republican Party.

Until the merger last week, the two parties were only in a coalition and, with the termination of the cases that the two leaders faced before the International Criminal Court – cases whose common threat served as an incentive for keeping the two leaders together – there was fear that the two might go their separate ways after the 2017 elections, or even before. The launch represents a decision that the two intend to remain together, at least up to the next General Election.

The merger provides a new tie between the two leaders and makes it more difficult for them to go separate ways after the 2017 elections.

In political circles, the merger is presented as an assurance to Mr Ruto of the support of President Kenyatta during the 2022 elections, in which the former hopes to be the candidate under the new party.

While critics have pointed out that the new party is only a vehicle for the re-election of President Kenyatta and that it is unlikely to last until 2022, this is only speculative, and wishful thinking. The truth is that only time will tell if this is the case.

PARTY ASSIMILATION

The second aspect of the new Jubilee Party is the assimilation of a number of smaller parties which, until the merger, were insignificant players in the country’s politics.

The integration of the smaller parties has been described as an acquisition, in parallel with commercial practices where big corporations swallow smaller ones, a relatively rare occurrence in Kenyan politics. The first time that a party was swallowed by another was in 1964, when Kadu disbanded to join the ruling party Kanu. Then, in the jostling that characterised the impending retirement of President Moi in 2002, Raila Odinga’s National Democratic Party (NDP) which, since 2000, had been in cooperation with Kanu, also merged with, and was swallowed into the then ruling party. Following a rebellion when Moi handpicked Uhuru Kenyatta as his successor in 2002, members of NDP walked out of Kanu and hijacked the little-known Liberal Democratic Party, under which they became a founder member of the National Rainbow Alliance that swept to power in 2002.

Jubilee has presented these new acquisitions in two ways. First, it has made it look like taking over these small parties is evidence that Jubilee is making inroads into parts of the country that rejected the ruling coalition in the last elections, in favour of various opposition parties, principally the Cord and Amani coalitions.

POLITICAL RAPPROCHEMENT

Second, Jubilee has presented these new acquisitions as evidence of a major political rapprochement in the country, which has brought previously opposed political groups into an enlarged fold, in which peace will reign eternally. Put differently, these smaller acquisitions are an answer to a pervasive criticism that Jubilee is “chama cha kabila mbili”. The acquisitions are the reason there were statements during the launch that Jubilee was kicking away tribalism, or that Kenyans were coming together to promote national unity.

The truth about these new acquisitions, however, is rather different from what has been presented. To begin with, none of them commanded much following in the areas that they are supposed to represent. It is an overstatement that their merger with Jubilee has had the effect of expanding the stakeholding in Jubilee or uniting the country in the manner that is claimed.

Second, many of the leaders of these smaller parties would struggle to demonstrate where the mandate that they claim to be exercising in leading “their people” to Jubilee derives from. Most of these parties are not even represented in Parliament, which means that they were rejected by the very people that they now claim to be leading into Jubilee. Even if this was not the case, the hurried and often chaotic nature in which these mergers were organised did not allow for the consultations that are supposed to have preceded the merger.

In many cases, a supposedly independent oversight swept under the carpet a number of well-founded objections that members were not consulted on the dissolution of their parties. In the end, the leaders that have folded their parties in favour of a merger with Jubilee represent nobody other than themselves.

Last week’s merger merits the following general comments. First, although represented as a step in the fight against ethnically driven politics, all that the Jubilee mergers have done is to mask the ethnic exclusivity that forms the basis of Jubilee’s organisation. These new acquisitions are ornamental and do not change the essential character of Jubilee.

Second, the mass dissolution of parties is unprecedented and reflects what is seen as a ruthless determination to create Jubilee in the mould of the previously monolithic Kanu with which the ruling coalition is often likened. This comes with some concern that Jubilee’s ultimate goal might be far more ambitious than the desire to retain power up to 2022.

Third, the country is no more united as a result of the Jubilee merger than it was before it and it is an act of escapism to claim otherwise.

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