Uhuru can only have pyrrhic win but Ruto has to be wary of allies

President Uhuru Kenyatta will have a reason to feel a sense of triumph if he manages to get one over Deputy President William Ruto in the battle for control of Jubilee Party.

Kicking Dr Ruto’s allies out of the Jubilee parliamentary leadership and sealing a pact with Mr Gideon Moi’s Kanu party will demonstrate that the President has not lost his hold on the ruling party.

It will also strengthen his influence on the organs that determine who gets nomination for presidential and downstream electoral seats come the 2022 General Election.

Victory for the President at this stage might well be the signal for Dr Ruto to face up to the likelihood that his presumed strength within the party counts for nothing; in which case, the wiser move would be foe him to float an alternative ticket for the next polls instead wasting time in a futile contest.

CONTEMPT

But even if President Kenyatta prevails, he will know in his heart that it is a pyrrhic victory.

The President can only have his way by taking advantage of the bully pulpit and an office that can treat with contempt the party constitution and rules; not because he commands majority support amongst Jubilee elected leaders and the rank and file.

There will actually be little to celebrate for a president who knows that he has lost his key support base. It does not need an opinion poll to tell that, in his central Kenya bastion, President Kenyatta has become a deeply unpopular figure. He is a subject of scorn and derision who is blamed for everything — from the dire economic situation to being a spoilt royal out of touch with the needs of the common man.

It is not long ago that the same crowds who now hold him in contempt hailed him with messianic fervour. He was seen as heir to his father, First President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, and reverently called ‘muthamaki’, a term denoting not just king or other mortal ruler but one of divine provenance.

The adoring crowds have dissipated. In their wake, governors and Members of Parliament and the county assemblies elected on Mr Kenyatta’s coattails across the populous region have largely drifted away and switched allegiance to Dr Ruto.

President Kenyatta must be looking on in consternation that those who benefited from his patronage are now openly defying and attacking him. He might be bitter, angry and smarting from the betrayal and ingratitude.

BLAMING RUTO

He will be blaming Dr Ruto for stealing or buying his supporters, and actively working to sabotage the projects by which he hopes to secure an enduring legacy as he serves out a second and final term at State House.

This would include the rapprochement with opposition leader Raila Odinga and the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), which is designed to create space for a more broad-based leadership structure. Or, more accurately, a larger feeding trough to accommodate more ethnic kingpins.

Bringing Mr Moi’s Kanu into a ruling coalition looks like part of the political engineering that will eventually bring Mr Odinga and other key opposition leaders — Kalonzo Musyoka and Musalia Mudavadi — into the frame and freeze out the Deputy President.

In the first instance, it fits neatly into the narrative that Dr Ruto has relentlessly pushed of his ‘Hustler Nation’ up against the ‘Dynasties’: Mr Moi is also the son of a former president, Mzee Kenyatta’s successor Daniel arap Moi, who, in turn, blooded the younger Kenyatta into politics.

Mr Odinga is the son and political heir of Kenya’s first Vice-President in the Kenyatta I regime, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.

The latest manoeuvre might also prompt Dr Ruto to go for broke and abandon the façade of a loyal lieutenant. And if he decides to go for broke with an all-out counter-offensive, he will have no shortage of attack dogs.

FOOT SOLDIERS

His foot soldiers in Parliament and his social media warriors have already been launching increasingly brutal attacks directly aimed at President Kenyatta, many borrowed from the template previously used by the opposition, such as playing up alleged laziness and overindulgence in alcohol.

But as the DP relies on fellows who previously owed loyalty to President Kenyatta; he has to be extremely cautious.

Many of politicians, strategists and keyboard activists swearing by him are in it for the money. They accuse President Kenyatta of being mean and ungrateful, signalling that they abandoned him once he stopped dishing out the largesse in his final term.

In Dr Ruto, they simply latched onto the nearest cash cow. They would jump in a flash to the side of anyone who offered more.

[email protected] www.gaitho.co.ke @MachariaGaitho