Ruto looks set to waste his first term on politics

Given the current trajectory, historians will remember President William Ruto’s first term as characterised by a monomaniacal effort to win re-election and little in policy achievement. The one major policy achievement in over the last two and a half years has been the avoidance of default.

However, even that feat is now in jeopardy given that the President has all but abandoned his commitments to fiscal consolidation. In other sectors, the President has found himself caught in a “failure equilibrium” whereby policy failures have led to political failure and vise versa.

Constant reports of glaring policy failures and the cratering of perceptions of the president’s performance in the lead up to the 2024 budget forced him to tuck his proverbial tail between his legs and seek a handshake with opposition leader Raila Odinga.

He then had to fire his Deputy President through impeachment. After that he has had to reshuffle his cabinet and set of principal secretaries.

Keen observers will notice that these reshuffles have not been about improving service delivery but expanding the president’s elite coalition ahead of the 2027 elections.

That is not how the electoral incentive for re-election is supposed to work. Instead of making incumbents play “alliance-building musical chairs,” the specter for re-election is supposed to make them focus on policy achievements.

At this point the president comes off not as strong on policy and personnel management, but as a peripatetic political lightweight out to try new things which invariably get captured by his own appointees and auctioned to the so-called cartels.

Is it too late to turn this ship around? Most likely. However, the President can still make some important policy achievements if he were to focus on at most three sectors and make them work. Education, agriculture and health quickly come to mind.

He should admit failure, abolish education reforms under the CBC mess, and start afresh. He should abolish the health reforms under SHA and start afresh. Finally, he should admit failure in revamping the agricultural sector and start afresh.

Admitting failure will not be seen as a sign of weakness if the president cordons off these three sectors for serious policy improvement. There is no policy or political benefit in doubling down on failure.

Despite his own political instincts, the president should try and seek re-election on the basis of policy achievements and not success at herding Kenyans into their respective ethnic pens.

- The writer is a professor at Georgetown University