Kalonzo torn this way and that way: The man Ruto wants on his side

Is Wiper Democratic Front Party Leader, Kalonzo Musyoka, about to jump ship to join President William Ruto? In a country that believes heavily in tribal kingpins and their ability to sway tribes to vote in a given way, Kalonzo has become a hot potato.

From President Ruto to Rigathi Gachagua, everyone who wants to be the supremo in State House after next year’s election has Kalonzo in their gunsights. Their optical tools present him as a suitable partner in some junior political role. They think that he will bring the Akamba on board, much the same way he has taken them everywhere he has gone since 2002.

But is Kalonzo easily the most misunderstood among Kenya’s national politicians? He has perhaps allowed others to define him, to the extent that they grossly distort his political identity. He has been called a watermelon. A wishy-washy politico with no capacity for solid stances on issues. He has been framed and defamed as someone who could sneak to State House during the night; to hunt with State predators, only to run with the antelopes in the bush during the day. 

A quick flip back reveals a different individual, a man of character, who is more sinned against than sinning. And it is true that the Akamba go with him everywhere he goes, in Kenya’s murky tribal politics. That said, Kalonzo is perhaps not the sniveling and driveling political windvane his detractors depict him to be; one whom President Ruto would sway with the promise of high office, and a whiff of money.

The grain of history suggests that Kalonzo is unlikely to swallow the Ruto bait. Both Ruto and his Kenya Kwanza acolytes keep sinking the temptation of good things, at public gatherings in Ukambani. They invite  Kalonzo to work with the President: “Tell Kalonzo to abandon these stupid people, who have no brains, to come and work with me. We want to unite Kenyans,” Ruto has said several times. Kalonzo has stayed put, however, but you never know. What you see is not always what you get.

Yet, Kenyans of age will remember the fallout in Kanu, following President Moi’s announcement in Kapsokwony in the Mt Elgon region, in September 2002,  that Uhuru Kenyatta would be the party’s candidate in that year’s election. There was instant consternation in a then recently revamped Kanu. The following month, the independence party suffered a chain of high-level defections. As a result, the Kanu cockerel is still staggering two dozen years later, and still counting.

Kalonzo was then one of Kanu’s four national vice chairpersons, the others being Musalia Mudavadi, Noah Katana Ngala, and Uhuru Kenyatta. As the defections snowballed, all eyes turned to the vice chairs. Would they too bolt, or would they stay? Mudavadi bolted, but retreated just as quickly. For a senior politician, he earned himself an ignoble sabbatical in Sabatia. Ngala stayed put, and Uhuru was, of course, the reason people were decamping.

Kenyans remember the image of Kalonzo on the steps at the main entrance of Nairobi’s Kenyatta International Convention Centre. His lips pursed, face crisped, mind immersed in deep thought, his eyes looking into the heavens. He looked like someone holding consultations with the divine world, seeking direction. At the United Kenya Club where this writer watched the unfolding events on prime news on KTN television, someone in the room said, “This man . . . ! This little man  . . . ! This man holds the key to this election. Will he be bullied to stay on?” 

He resigned from the Cabinet the following day and decamped to the opposition ranks. He supported Mwai Kibaki and the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc); running for the Mwingi North seat, which he clinched on the Liberal Democratic Party ticket in the coalition. While Kibaki appointed him to two different Cabinet positions after the resounding Narc victory, he became a member of the fallout team that led Kenyans in rejecting the 2005 draft constitution.

Steadman opinion polls began profiling him as the man most likely to be elected Kenya’s president in 2007. A conspiracy of circumstances, however, denied him this opportunity. There was, especially, the humiliation at Tononoka Grounds by ODM-Kenya goons, who seemed to have been carefully drilled for that role. There was a need to run him out of competition with Raila Odinga for the ODM-K presidential ticket. And Kalonzo ran away with both the ticket and the party.

Many other divisive things happened thereafter. Yet, current generations know how many times he has stood down to allow Raila to run for President, with his moral and material support. That is Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka. You can count on his word, despite the treachery that informs the political space in Kenya. William Ruto knows this. And other alpha politicians know it, too. Meanwhile, they believe that the starting point in next year’s presidential poll will be determined by cocktails of ethnic numbers. They see Akamba numbers both as entry point and backup.

They also think that where Kalonzo will be, there too victory will be, despite a series of historical defeats with Raila. The stars seem to be aligned differently this time, showing that Ruto could suffer a mortifying electoral defeat if the opposition remains united and fields one presidential candidate. Ruto thinks that Kalonzo is the entry point with least resistance, in his effort to scuttle the opposition. The ploy is to berate the Akamba numbers in the opposition bargaining. Ruto is baiting them with a good place in his stable, and a good office for Kalonzo. Never mind that Rigathi Gachagua was baited the same way, and Prof. Abraham Kithure Kindiki, too.

The trick is to persuade Kalonzo that the big tribes are once again going to minimize his presidential effort. He should, accordingly, throw his lot with him; a lot that Ruto wants to cast as a sure bet. Never mind, too, that the bait of deputy president has been floated in Western Kenya, around Mudavadi; National Assembly speaker, Moses Wetang’ula, and Cooperatives CS, Wycliffe Oparanya. It has also been dangled before Oburu Oginga, Gladys Wanga, and John Mbadi in Nyanza. And it is on offer to Hassan Joho at the Coast. Never mind, also, that there is a sitting deputy president, Prof Kindiki, who now must fight the political fight of his life. The position has been promised to him as his to retain.

So, again, will Kalonzo swallow the bait? He has avowedly said a big No to President Ruto. Yet, such avowals are often just that, in the political space. Previously he vowed never to support Raila again for State House. But he retreated on this. The language of politics is rarely intended to describe political reality. Rhetoric and strategy often point in opposite directions. Kalonzo may say No, when he intends Yes. President Ruto will call opposition leaders “stupid, brainless, and without a development agenda for the country.” And yet he will still surreptitiously reach out to them. Sometimes not so surreptitiously though, he will ask them to join him and work with him.

In the language of political communications, Ruto is speaking to several audiences. To his own supporters, he is giving the assurance that opposition leaders deserve neither respect nor power. He attempts to diminish their stature, while raising his. He is the only sheriff in town, the ultimate alpha male political lion. Yet, when his acolytes are commissioned to invite the same “stupid and brainless People,” does strategy contradict rhetoric? What is he up to?

What Ruto is saying is that he considers Kalonzo to be “useless” and “stupid” as a political thinker and policy maker. But he is useful when it comes to bagging Akamba votes. He is desperately needed to shore up the Ruto numbers. To paraphrase Prof. Achille Mbembe, politicians don’t want to  recruit ideas. They want to recruit votes. Ruto does not want to recruit Kalonzo for any useful ideas he is likely to take to him, but for the Akamba vote that he believes is managed by Kalonzo. In this single wave, he beefs up his numbers and weakens the opposition.

Ruto’s war of words against the opposition is, accordingly, also a form of wooing them. It is a commercial political bargaining of sorts, where the hostility remains reparable, as in the case of Raila’s handshakes with Uhuru and with Ruto himself. In this language of political communications, Ruto has been raising the cost of political resistance while also leaving the door open for possible negotiation. The invitation is accordingly not exactly addressed to Kalonzo, it is intended for the Akamba electorate.

What is Ruto telling this electorate? His coded message is simple, “I do not quarrel with you. I have invited your leader to work with me. But he is stupid. He has no brains, no agenda for you. If you feel left out of the government and development, blame your leader, not me.”

By the same token, Ruto is weakening the ties that bind the opposition through these repeated invites to Kalonzo. They are sending the message that Kalonzo could possibly have opened a backdoor for conversations with him. Kalonzo’s denials are making news. This alone is valuable to Ruto, even if Kalonzo will eventually never jump ship. Rumours are instruments of politics, and Ruto is using them to good effect.

Yet, the invitations are also good for Kalonzo within the opposition space. They are by default defining him as the one person who must be at the heart of every opposition dialogue, possibly even as the principal alternative to Ruto. The paradox is powerful. The more Ruto insists Kalonzo should join him, the more he acknowledges the man’s significance. If he was truly irrelevant, there would be no need to be overly obsessed with him. Political capital is not wasted on “useless” people. This is President Ruto’s backhanded compliment to an opposition that could politically eat him up in next year’s election.

For Kalonzo, he would do well to recall the African story about the spider who loved luring moths into his web. He would emit a sweet smell, which we now know to be pheromones of female moths. Male moths, looking for sex partners, would be attracted. They would fly straight in the direction of the enticing scent. They would be caught up in the sticky silky stuff, and end up in the spider’s thin stomach.

After the moth called Rigathi Gachagua was eaten, another one called Kithure Kindiki was coaxed into the spider’s web. Now there are slightly over half a dozen moths, being lured towards the Ruto web. The trouble with moths is that they have short memories. They cannot even remember what happened to their relatives in the web.

This drama may just continue unfolding, even as Ruto scouts around for the most astute running moth, and the one formula that could crack and scatter an opposition whose face increasingly looks to him like a humiliating nightmare that could send him home.