Of cornered Ruto and what Sifuna must do for his star to shine brighter

There is a very good chance that Edwin Sifuna could become Kenya’s President from August next year. The pollsters speak of a meteoric rise and a steady surge in numbers. The youth, who constitute upwards of 75 per cent of the voting population, are enthralled by his charisma, wit and courage.

And back in his native home of Western Kenya, he has upset the legacy political kingpin class. In the opposition space, he is soaring above the traditional claimants.

The Nairobi senator’s star is rising. He is the man to watch for those yearning for freshness.  Yet, it is not an easy road ahead. The hard part begins now, for this man who made a grand entry into Kitale and Bungoma last weekend. This was easily the most successful return to the native land by any politician from Western, without being held by the hand, by a powerful outsider. Crowds of the size he pulled have only been possible with visiting presidents, and Raila Odinga in his time. But even then, they are not always that huge.

The media has called the former ODM secretary general’s heroic season “Sifuna’s moment.”  The fortunes of this man who lost the ODM senatorial primaries in Bungoma in 2017 are looking good. Yet, he must survive this success. He must transform his triumphant moment into a national movement. If not, the season will only be remembered as the flash in the pan that his detractors yearn for. Voters and the political class alike will be looking at him with a mixture of fear and hope, as well as love and awe, depending on where they stand in what could become Kenya’s most fierce race for State House since 2007. Pundits will possibly focus on this rising star without canonising or minimising him.

While Sifuna and the Linda Mwananchi Movement have grown into an almost unstoppable forest fire in a matter of months, the deepest story is not about the flame. It is rather about the fragile forest that was already in place, even before the fire even began. The heat of political rhetoric already existed in this forest, sparked by toxic messaging, as well as an opulent and wasteful culture, and a dismissive attitude in State House.

Pre-existent, too, was the fuel of widespread public grievance against the Ruto regime’s lifestyle, and the recklessness that informs the State’s projection of itself to the nation. Finally, Kenya has a rich supply of the oxygen of unhappy public conversations. These abound on multiple platforms. Even ahead of Sifuna’s arrival, these attributes defined the political arena. They are responsible for the self-feeding political inferno that is consuming the Ruto regime. Linda Mwananchi and Sifuna arrived right on cue.

Sifuna and Linda Mwananchi were born out of state-generated toxic rhetorical heat; the fuel of widespread public grievances that the State dismisses as “stupid”; and the oxygen of anti-State public conversations. It is truly a  Sifuna-Linda Mwananchi moment. Yet, the enthusiasm of the moment is never the same thing as the desired destination. History is unkind to leaders who mistake the moment for the destination.

President William Ruto is himself discovering this, perhaps a little late. He mistook the popularity that carried him to electoral victory for permanent love and absolute legitimacy. He went on to take the country and electorate for granted. He raised himself to the level of a genius of sorts; almost a demigod. For four years, he has imposed upon the nation every unpopular whim and will he could muster; from draconian housing levies for an unpopular housing project, to a dysfunctional healthcare system whose failure the State stubbornly refuses to acknowledge. 

Also failed is the university funding model, which the State has now placed in reverse gear, without explicitly owning up that it was a mistake. Quietly left behind is the Hustler Fund and a moonshine Bottom Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), which was the platform of the Ruto popularity in 2022. Agriculture flounders, as does a digital superhighway promise of 100,000 kilometres of optic fibre cabling.

Ruto is cornered in a frantic struggle to justify four lost years; a waste that was buoyed up by electoral success euphoria. He failed to leave the victorious electoral moment behind. He danced the victory dance far too long. Could Sifuna make the same mistake, even before take-off? Hopefully he will not dance himself lame before the real dance in August next year. The heroic euphoria around him is an astute platform for focused engagement with the public. Hopefully applause will not be mistaken for permanent success and love.

His last TV interview ahead of this writing revealed a politician who was conscious of these challenges. He ducked repeated taunts by the TV hostess, who wanted him to declare himself a presidential aspirant. While not outright denying what the country now takes as inevitable, he spared the forthright answer for some other day. He seemed aware that what he has bagged is the narrative momentum at the right point of storytelling. The story must still be told, and many moments be survived. 

Above all is surviving deconstruction, by both the State and colleagues in the opposition corner. The State will seek to take down all rising stars. But apart from State propaganda, such stars are also deconstructed and renamed by colleagues who aspire for the same office they are eyeing. It is still an all-against-all narrative warfare before internal competitors could join hands, to face the common external foe.

Accordingly, narrative momentum is volatile. It changes like the weather. Yes, Sifuna is the voice of a broader public dissatisfaction. Yet, the narrative moment stubbornly creates expectations faster than it builds individuals and institutions. The first thing that the Nairobi senator must survive, therefore, is visibility.

A rising politician gets to the point where scrutiny replaces applause. Sifuna is already there. Opponents are not just disagreeing with him, they are seeking to define him even before he can define himself. They are defaming his modest lifestyle, and calling him a poor man, laughing at his rural residence for absence of opulence and ostentation.

They are looking for domestic hairs to split, to show that he is unfit for higher office. Scandal hunters and fishers are rummaging everywhere, in broad daylight with lit lantern lamps. They are foraging for anything to bring him down. His every speech, alliance, action, hesitation, presence and absence, will be interpreted through the lens of presidential ambition. Keyboard warriors and sundry cyber goons are already at work.

His TV interview on Tuesday is the subject of social media character framing and warfare.

Professional and amateur propagandists alike are alive with narratives of how he does not measure up, and how others in the opposition are far better. Those who give him the benefit of doubt still go on to cast him as a minnow before President Ruto, mostly as an expression of wishful thinking rather than fact. 

Amidst all this, Sifuna must still broaden his constituency.  He must address both those who agree with him and those who doubt him. There are those who fear him, and those who do not know him. Those who love him, and those who outright detest him. Each must be addressed. Will he widen his political imagination in a delicate balancing act that addresses all these audiences?

Attrition from the opposition space has begun in the place of birth, Western Kenya. It was most notably manifested during the weekend visit by the absence of DAP Kenya party leader, Eugene Wamalwa. Wamalwa has expressed his interest in the presidency. While he is not to be dismissed,  polls rank the affable Wamalwa as a rather distant possibility. This even as his relations with his deputy party leader, Trans-Nzoia governor George Natembeya, have deteriorated steadily since 2022.

Wamalwa has not gained Natembeya’s support. And now Natembeya has embraced Sifuna and is set to be a critical player in the journey ahead. While Wamalwa and Sifuna have not been in the same party, they are both united in the thought that Ruto must go. To be a no-show on a giant occasion like last weekend’s was therefore very telling.

Also conspicuously absent has been Saboti MP, Caleb Amisi, who is launching a new political party next week. Separately, Mumias East MP, Peter K. Salasya, has been on social media and other platforms, casting all manner of aspersions against Sifuna. There is little love lost between the two. Sifuna has habitually made Salasya a butt of hilarious public jokes that touch on Salasya’s inability to express himself in grammatical English; as well as his regular display of limping grasp of critical issues; appalling practical jokes;  and frumpy grooming.

But more fundamental in Western are the fading stars, all of whom are in government. Musalia Mudavadi, Moses Wetang’ula, and Wycliffe Oparanya, each regards himself the regional political kingpin. That Sifuna has played them off this altar is no longer debatable. The question is rather on how long it will take them to wake up to the reality that they are receding into the past; and the region they purpose to give President Ruto is gone. In this, they are not alone.

There is a cocktail of system Members of Parliament as their supporting cast. They all believe, like Mudavadi did in 2002, that the sitting President will pull a political rabbit out of the bag, to change the reality on the ground. Mudavadi has called the Sifuna wave “a paper fire.” In 2002, he said the same of the Michael Wamalwa wave, only for the fire to send him on a five-year political sabbatical from Sabatia Constituency. Coming to 66 now, the Sifuna wave could send him into oblivion altogether.

Cognizant of the possibility of consignment into the dustbin of political history, and unable to swallow their phlegm, these system politicos are likely to mount the fight of their life against Sifuna, Linda Mwananchi and the people. Backed up by what is increasingly characterizing itself as President Ruto’s desperation to claim the region at all cost, Linda Mwananchi should brace up for a titanic onslaught. Money is likely to flow into Western like the Nzoia and Yala rivers in the rain season. Expect to see State activity that will dwarf the State’s recent largesse in the Ol Kalou by-election into a tiny Lilliput. President Ruto himself is likely to camp permanently in Western Kenya, with a monied back up from everywhere.

COTU Secretary General Francis Atwoli leads the chorus of those scoffing at Sifuna’s perceived financial challenges. The refrain is that Linda Mwananchi’s activities are funded by retired President Uhuru Kenyatta. Team Sifuna has been swift to deny that they are working with Uhuru. It is not clear what could be wrong with Uhuru funding anybody in the political space. The retired President is not known to run a criminal enterprise. Anyone whom he may want to sponsor for any lawful undertaking should not be shy.

But Sifuna is possibly being cautious because he does not want to be called Uhuru’s project. Yet, even if he is not labelled a Uhuru Kenyatta project, a lot of injurious things – most of them false – are going to be said about him. He may need to rethink his unease with getting support from well off wishers. Not every monied individual funds politics in expectation for kickbacks. There are many wealthy people out there whose only interest in politics is a regime that creates a good environment for their wealth to be safe, and to keep growing.

There are people who should be avoided. Yet, a conscientious political leader should not shy away from every support. Sifuna may want to pluck the courage and good sense to be seen with Uhuru, and with other leading Kenyans who are heavily invested in their country. They will help him to move to every nook and cranny of the country, to counter Ruto’s inroads. He must especially reach every youth and explain to them what difference his candidacy promises, and what his presidency would deliver.