Cabinet auditions for trio in Ruto’s running mate talent search

After naming a partial Cabinet early this month, President Uhuru Kenyatta last Friday filled the rest of the positions on his 22-member team that includes one in charge of an odd docket called “On the Need Basis”.

With the creation of this Cabinet position with a funny name for Raphael Tuju, the Jubilee party secretary-general, Kenya must surely be on course to being inducted among countries with the wackiest public service roles in the world.

Move over UAE with your Ministry of Happiness and India with your Ministry of Yoga!

However, the major talking point around Mr Kenyatta’s latest appointments in the past two days has been the creation of the position of Chief Administration Secretary in each ministry and its being reserved largely for politicians who lost in the last elections.

MOCKERY

In addition to adding another layer of bureaucracy at the taxpayer’s expense and making a mockery of the government’s austerity evangelism, the decision to create a big public office just to wipe election losers’ tears is consistent with the Jubilee administration’s knack for showing the Constitution the middle finger.

I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t become a subject of litigation in the coming days.

But that isn’t all there is to read into Friday’s Cabinet and other senior public office appointments.

There is also a sense that some of the appointments were made with an eye on the 2022 elections in which Deputy President William Ruto is widely expected to be the undisputed Jubilee presidential candidate.

Three of the Cabinet Secretaries will most likely view their selection as an opportunity to audition for the role of Mr Ruto’s running mate as the Deputy President opens the search for one or works to eliminate potential competition.

AMBITION

And each of them, no doubt, fits the profile of a prospective running mate having publicly expressed his own ambition for high office in the past and boasted some clout in his vote-rich ethnic community.

The name of Mwangi Kiunjuri, who has been moved to Agriculture from Devolution, will probably be the first on any shortlist.

Mr Kiunjuri, a former Laikipia East MP, has been seen to pull ahead of the rest in the race to succeed Mr Kenyatta as the next Kikuyu political kingpin.

His rivals have accused him of influencing the outcome of elections in a number of central Kenya counties and constituencies last August. The President’s disclosure last year that he had prevailed upon Mr Kiunjuri to drop his bid for Laikipia governor and continue serving in his government got tongues wagging as well.

Peter Munya, one of the few surprise inclusions in the Cabinet, will fancy his chances, too, if Mr Ruto widens his search to the greater Mt Kenya region.

But the former Meru governor must pray that the Deputy President gets convinced that courting the Luhya is a lost cause and overlooks Eugene Wamalwa, who has replaced Mr Kiunjuri at the politically key Ministry of Devolution.

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