Why Kenya's politics favours turncoats

The recent move by President William Ruto to close ranks with his erstwhile political rival and Opposition leader Raila Odinga to form a Government of National Unity has exposed the soft underbelly of Kenyan politics that favours political fence-sitting. 

Politicians know that they have to  swallow their words shamelessly and do what they swore never to do for survival. 

Intrinsically, there is no room for hard positions and strong words in the dynamic politics of Kenya’s political arena with many politicians being caught in the fray. 

A few years before Kenya got into the multi-party era (in 1991), following the repealing of section 2A of the Constitution, former President Mwai Kibaki, then vice president, declared that agitating for multi-party democracy and trying to dislodge Kanu from power was like “trying to cut down a Mugumo (fig) tree using a razor blade”. 

Notably, Kibaki,  was to later resign from government as Health minister, two months after Kenya became a multi-party democracy, ditched Kanu, then founded the Democratic Party (DP) and went ahead to run for presidency in 1992. 

Last week, hours after President Ruto named the second batch of his Cabinet secretaries, a video of Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua giving an animated speech at the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) headquarters emerged. 

In the speech, Gachagua declared that President Ruto’s predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta failed to deliver in his second term because he brought in his political foe then National Super Alliance (NASA) leader, Raila, into government. 

“We cannot make such a mistake, there are some who claim that President Ruto wants a handshake while Rigathi is opposed to it, let me tell you, Ruto is more strict than I am and does not want anything to do with a handshake, he cannot go that road,” 

Gachagua observed that there is no leader, who had won the election with a comfortable margin that would bring in his opponent to run the government. 

“That will be making democracy nonsensical, it begs that then what is the point of going to an election, if we can just bring in those we defeated. We should then invite people of nyumba kumi to decide who becomes a leader,” said Gachagua. 

The DP’s statement has less than a year after Ruto and Raila held talks after opposition parties led demonstrations that nearly led to economic paralysis. 

Just like the Kibaki’s 360 degrees turn around in 1991, what Gachagua could perhaps never envisage was a complete and full turn of events. 

As the Deputy President, Gachagua will be forced to not only bear with a group of ODM party’s top guns in Cabinet. He will have to work a Treasury Cabinet Secretary from the Opposition in a broad-based government. 

Apart from the Mining and Blue Economy and Energy and Petroleum dockets that also went to the ODM, the Treasury and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises ministries are the backbone of Ruto and Gachagua’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) that will now be implemented under the stewardship of the opposition luminaries. 

According to Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi ; “In Kenyan politics, never express yourself definitively on any subject. Always maintain constructive ambiguity.” 

Despite the infamous Mugumo tree gaffe, senior journalists have described the Kibaki as a politician who lived and survived politically due to his ambivalence. 

Veteran journalist Macharia Gaitho once wrote that Kibaki was widely seen as a gentleman of Kenyan politics.

“A good guy but one who lacked the steel of rough and tumble,’’ he wrote.

Kwendo Opanga, also a veteran journalist, described Kibaki as “one who never saw a fence he did not want to sit on’’.

Had his former Finance Minister Amos Kimunya consulted him (Kibaki), he would not have made the statement he gave after Parliament passed a vote of no confidence against him on July 2, 2008.

Kimunya had been accused of selling the five-star Grand Regency Hotel to a Libyan company for far less than its actual value.

After the vote of no confidence, Kimunya would infamously pronounce that “I would rather die than resign!’’

A couple of days after the emotive statement he swallowed his words when he tendered his resignation to Kibaki on July 8, 2008, to pave way for an independent commission to investigate the transaction. 

In the political uproar leading to the 2022 General Election, Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu) Secretary-General Francis Atwoli was one harshest critics of President Ruto but said he respects the will of the people. He comically said that “kateni miti huyu mtoto atajinyonga!” (cut trees the young one will hang himself). 

“As I have always said, William Ruto is an articulate politician.

‘‘I had envisioned that he can’t become the fifth president of Kenya,” Atwoli said immediately after the Supreme Court ruling on the election petition. 

The trade unionist then said Ruto was President and urged all Kenyans of goodwill to rally behind him and allow him to form his government. 

Speaking during a TV interview, Atwoli said; “This is what democracy is, as Cotu we had endorsed Raila Odinga as our presidential candidate.

‘‘We took a position and in myself as a democrat, we support Ruto after he won.” 

During the 2022 campaigns, former Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho, who was Wednesday nominated Cabinet Secretary for Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs had accused President Ruto of lying. 

“He has made a trillion promises, and now he is selling a narrative and calling it an economic model,” said Joho. 

“We must hold leaders accountable, we must hold Ruto accountable for what he did in 10 years as the Deputy President,” said Joho then.