Own worst enemy? Ruto haunted by move to fold URP

Deputy President William Ruto’s ‘genius move’ to fold his United Republican Party (URP) amid strong opposition from his ardent supporters has come back to haunt him with the renewed bid to wrest Jubilee Party from his firm grip.

When President Uhuru Kenyatta mooted the idea of folding 12 political parties to form Jubilee Party, it quickly emerged that the biggest obstacle would come from Dr Ruto’s camp.

The then rebellious Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto led a clique of top URP officials including Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter and former Kuresoi South MP Zakayo Cheruiyot in opposing the plan, saying it was akin to political suicide.

But in his usual abrasive style, Dr Ruto told off the politicians, insisting that the best, and probably only way for the Kalenjin community to have a shot at the presidency in 2022, was to join the Jubilee bandwagon.

“I have seen people complain and say if we dissolve our parties, we are setting ourselves up for ridicule and being taken for granted in future. But what does that say about you, that you think someone will con you out your party? Isn’t that really stupid?” Asked a confident Dr Ruto in mid-2016, just as the merger debate raged on.

“I know what I am doing. Just give me the time to do it. It is an insult of the highest order to suggest that I am being played, and that I do not know what I am doing.”

Throughout the merger discussion and long after the September 2016 formation of the Jubilee Party, Dr Ruto became the face and the voice of the need to form one “truly national party”.

But barely three and a half years after the pompous September launch of Jubilee, Dr Ruto is hanging by the thread in the party he touted as the solution to Kenya’s perennial political woes.

And those who warned him in 2016 have one message for him: “We told you so.”

“My advice is, let the aggrieved party accept the reality that we had warned them was coming, go out and form their own party just like we did,” Mr Ruto, the former Bomet governor, told the Nation Monday.

Mr Ruto left Jubilee to form Chama Cha Mashinani after what became irreconcilable differences with the DP, chief among them being the merger.

Now Dr Ruto is fighting what he calls a fraudulent move to change the Jubilee Party officials of the National Management Committee.

The decision has, however, been defended by the party’s Secretary-General Raphael Tuju and Vice-Chairman David Murathe, who said the changes were made with the blessings of President Kenyatta. At the time he opposed the merger, Mr Ruto said his conviction was that Kenya was sliding back to the Kanu single-party era.

“The current noise over the fate of Jubilee is not ideological. It is all about: ‘Look, this thing is no longer favouring me’. It has nothing to do with democratic ideals,” the former governor said.

“What is happening in Jubilee fits what I foresaw. I did not see then and I do not see now the need to fold parties to form a monolith.”

Mr Keter, another vocal critic of the merger who believes the folding of URP was a mistake from the start, now wants the focus to be on fighting Covid-19.

“These people who are mobilising MPs to write protest letters to the Registrar of Political Parties over what is happening in Jubilee should instead focus their energy, time and resources on fighting the virus. In any case, they have been claiming to be generous just a few months ago. We want to see their generosity now as Kenya battles the virus,” Mr Keter said.

MPs allied to Dr Ruto joined him in writing protest letters to Ms Anne Nderitu, the registrar, following his complaint over the proposed change of officials.

Dr Ruto has protested the move by Mr Tuju to have Ms Lucy Nyawira Macharia, Prof Marete Marangu, Mr Walter Nyambati, Ms Jane Nampaso and Mr James Waweru join the National Management Committee. Ms Veronica Maina, Ms Fatuma Shukri and Ms Pamela Mutua have been kicked out.

But as the situation in the ruling party unfolds, it is increasingly emerging that Dr Ruto could be a victim of the very things he had accused his opponents of.

Besides the almost blind belief that he would not be played in the new party, Dr Ruto’s description of his opponents then have an eerie similarity to what he is facing now.

“In 2013, we faced a formidable team with half the government — a sitting Prime Minister and a sitting vice-president. In 2017, we are facing a clueless, rudderless leaderless, plan-less and disorganised opposition,” Dr Ruto described the Opposition’s ticket of Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka in January 2017.