Ruto’s hidden trump card in bid to be president

Deputy President William Ruto. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Ruto has a constitutional right to contest the presidency.

  • Kibaki won because he had joined other opposition leaders who were struggling for Kenya’s second liberation.

After the defeat of Mau Mau in 1956, the British used their elaborate bureaucracy, intelligence agencies and their long experience with the Empire to negotiate the terms of Kenya’s independence.

The critical issues included the fate of European settler farms in Central Province and the Rift Valley, foreign investments and British military bases in the country.

The solutions to these issues were seen in terms of carefully vetting and putting in place African leaders who would ensure that Kenya’s post-independence State guaranteed continuity.

After a thorough search, Jomo Kenyatta was the British choice. Although he had been maligned and detained for seven years for allegedly leading Mau Mau, his long years of leadership of the nationalist struggle, his admiration of British capitalism, his conservatism, his readiness to forgive and cooperate with Britain influenced his choice.

At the three Lancaster Conferences, it was agreed that the Kenya government buy the vast tracts of European-owned land in Central and Rift Valley through loans from donor countries.

The tracts were then sold to Kenyans; the ones in Central to the Kikuyu, and those in the Rift Valley to the local Kalenjin and other Kenyans, including many Kikuyu who had lived there as squatters since the 1920s. Individuals in Kenyatta’s Cabinet and in the civil service acquired a lot larger land.

POWERFUL LEADER

This happened because, once in power, Kenyatta adopted an ethno-patrimonial style of governance. He ruled the country as the unquestioned head of a family and rewarded with land individuals closest and loyal to him. These individuals included Mbiyu Koinange, Njoroge Mungai, James Gichuru and Bruce Mackenzie (who was a spy and key link with Britain and Israel), and Daniel arap Moi.

The latter became vice-president as Kenyatta’s counterpoise against the radicals in Kanu including Oginga Odinga and Bildad Kaggia, who were opposed to Kenyatta’s land policy.

But Moi was also willing, as the most powerful leader in the Rift Valley, to allow many landless Kikuyu to settle there. The British tolerated Kenyatta’s ethno-patrimonialism so long as it served their country’s economic and foreign interests. By 1968 the British and those closest to Kenyatta became increasingly concerned about who would be Kenya’s next president if he died.

Moi’s presidential bid was bitterly contested by individuals closest to Kenyatta. But even as internal intrigues were going on in Kenyatta’s inner circle, Britain and the US were once again seriously engaged in influencing his succession.

CANDIDATES SIDELINED

Some of the possible candidates were sidelined. Oginga Odinga, for instance, lost his position as the national and Kanu vice-president in 1966 primarily because of his radicalism and opposition to Kenyatta’s land policy. Moi was the ultimate choice, simply because of his dominant position in the Rift Valley, his conservatism and loyalty to Kenyatta.

Ultimately, he benefitted from the Constitution, which provided that the vice-president succeeds the president in case the latter died or was otherwise incapacitated. Moi became president when Kenyatta died in 1978.

Moi appointed Mwai Kibaki his vice-president as he wanted to ensure that the Kikuyu, the most economically powerful community in Kenya, supported his regime.

He also pledged to continue with Kenyatta’s land and other policies. During his beleaguered regime, Moi relegated Kibaki to the less prestigious Health ministry, but appointed other Kikuyus, including Josephat Karanja and George Kinuthia Saitoti, respectively, as VP. Moi’s lieutenants also threatened, and did evict, “foreigners” from their lands in many parts of the Rift Valley so that they vote for him in the 1992 and 1997 elections.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Later in the run-up to the 2002 presidential election, Moi unsuccessfully declared Uhuru Kenyatta, a political novice at the time, his preferred successor, possibly to appease the Kikuyu.

Kibaki won because he had joined other opposition leaders who were struggling for Kenya’s second liberation.

Also, at the time, most Kenyans and external donors considered him sufficiently experienced to revive the country’s ailing economy and establish democratic governance.

In the course of time, however, Kibaki relapsed into Kenyatta’s and Moi’s ethno-patrimonialism.

Widespread violence followed his bid for a second term in the 2007 elections, which were allegedly rigged in his favour.

The epicentre of the violence was in the Rift Valley where many Kikuyu were either evicted or killed.

The Kikuyu retaliated in kind in Naivasha and Nakuru. Once again, central to the post-election violence was the issue of succession which was inextricably connected to the land issue.

LOYALTY

On his part, Kibaki tacitly supported Uhuru’s candidature in the controversial 2013 presidential election probably to reward him for his ethnic loyalty and support during his troubled tenure.

Uhuru’s running mate in the race to succeed Kibaki in 2013 was William Ruto.

The two had been circumstantially drawn together by accusations against them at the International Criminal Court in the aftermath of the 2007 post-election violence.

They agreed to resolve the Kikuyu-Kalenjin land-related differences. They worked together within Jubilee, an ethno-political alliance, secured electoral victory and became president and deputy president respectively.

Fast forward to the present. Ruto has popularised his presidential ambition so early and with such unprecedented vigour and aggressiveness that his supporters criticise individuals who appear to challenge his bid for the position.

Lately they have also (mis)interpreted Uhuru’s call for leaders’ lifestyle audit to fight corruption as primarily directed against Ruto.

CONTRITUTIONAL RIGHT

This aside, Ruto has a constitutional right to contest the presidency. Perhaps what should be of concern to Kenyans are the following: What dreams does he have for Kenya? Does he have plans to change Kenya’s economy so that land grabbing and other forms of corruption become things of the past? Or does he simply want to sustain the Kikuyu-Kalenjin swing of the presidential pendulum in line with what has happened since independence?

These are questions which Ruto himself will be expected to answer with time as the struggle for succession intensifies. Most likely, land, the central factor in presidential succession since Kenya’s independence, will be his trump card.

For as Karl Marx once stated: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”

Prof Ndege teaches history at Moi University. Email [email protected]