Uhuru’s surprise moves and why there’s turbulence ahead for Ruto

President Uhuru Kenyatta says Kenyans will be shocked when he pronounces himself on his own succession. No. Perhaps a tad surprised, but not shocked.

The President has been softening the ground for such an eventuality by his own recent words and deeds about, but especially against, Deputy President William Ruto.

And if the words and deeds of his political father, former President Moi, are any guide, a politically-instigated change at the top of the political pyramid would stop many in their tracks momentarily before processing, adapting and moving on.

Heirs apparent have been kicked around like footballs and then into touch. Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe suddenly sacked his long-serving Vice-President Joyce Mujuru in 2014 while accusing her of corruption and consulting witch doctors with a view to killing him and seizing power.

GRUMBLING

Three years later Mugabe accused Mujuru’s successor Emerson Mnagangwa of corruption and sacked him.

Kenya’s President Moi in 2002 brazenly declared Prof George Saitoti, his Vice-President of more than 10 years, as fit to be a friend, but unfit to lead.

He then named a political greenhorn and failed parliamentary contestant called Uhuru Kenyatta his heir apparent.

Now experienced in the dark arts of politics, President Kenyatta may have had grumbling Central and Mount Kenya lawmakers as his audience when he raised the recent spectre of upcoming change at the top.

Thinking Kenyans, however, are of the view that he was, in fact, looking at the DP in his rear view mirror.

Unsurprisingly, his remark drew knowing, suspicious and disturbed glances, nods and winks in the direction of the DP among his admirers, haters and observers.

CRITICISM

And that makes his statement as profound in its ruthless reflection of the politics as ominous in its forecast on the presidential succession.

One, most people would expect that the governing Jubilee Party would do everything possible to retain power foremost being fielding a candidate for the presidency who has been an understudy of the President.

President Kenyatta is suggesting he will go against the grain.

Two, many would expect Jubilee not to disrupt its pecking order especially in the build up to an election and prefer instead continuity and stability - which are prerequisites to presenting the trust-inducing aura of organisation, discipline and confidence to the electorate. President Kenyatta’ statement suggests he may upset the status quo.

Three, the President has publicly referred to his deputy as a gallivanting youngster and asked the electorate to ask him to work for them.

This signalled a change in the relationship between the two; they were now colleagues and not friends, much less bonhomie.

DEVELOPMENT

That was seen as the beginning of the end of UhuRuto, the 2012 pact between Uhuru and Ruto who would become President and Deputy respectively in 2013. Subsequent developments have only helped to put more distance between President and Deputy.

The encounter with Central and Mount Kenya MPs falls into this pattern. Ironically, the President was confronted by a demand by MPs for what they called development because their region was lagging behind.

The implication was the Deputy President’s backyard was developing better than the President’s and which was why the MPs had joined Team Tangatanga or that the President, unlike the DP, does not extend state largesse to his backyard. The President was incandescent.

But whatever the MPs took home, the President once again put a little more distance between himself and his Deputy.

ICC

But this time around he hinted at an unexpected choice where previously he had said he would be at home as presidential candidates wrestled.

But his message hit the DP at a difficult time. First, the ghosts of the 2007/08 post-election violence that gripped his Uasin Gishu backyard and of Ms Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of The Hague-based International Criminal Court, before which he was arraigned, returned to haunt him.

There may be new evidence to return the DP to the dock in The Hague. Second, the DP was in the news for losing the lucrative contract of being landlord to the Kenya Police Service in a move interpreted by his supporters and enemies alike as targeting Mr Ruto’s source of funds.

Last, the DP shot himself in the foot. He became the first high profile dignitary to publicly welcome back murder accused Migori Governor Okoth Obado into high society so soon after his release on bail and with the family of his deceased student girlfriend Sharon Otieno still in shock.

There’s turbulence ahead for the DP.

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