Is what was to be a smooth transition from President Uhuru Kenyatta to Deputy William Ruto turning into a nightmare for the DP? Well, fresh and more serious opposition has emerged from within his Jubilee Party and populous Central Kenya.
Ruto’s 2022 presidential ambition faces major obstacles threatening to scuttle his bid, despite his relentless campaigning to succeed Uhuru.
The fast-shifting political dynamics in Kikuyu politics, coupled with the unsettling truce between Uhuru and ODM leader Raila Odinga, pose a grave threat to Ruto’s State House bid.
And then there’s the fact that some of Ruto’s allies are quietly being removed from plum positions, while others are facing corruption charges.
On Wednesday Jubilee vice chairman David Murathe who is Uhuru’s close ally, openly asked Ruto to retire alongside the President in 2022.
His remarks have triggered a political firestorm that has widened the rift within the President’s ruling party.
On Wednesday, Murathe bluntly stated the Kikuyu community does not have any MoU with Ruto regarding support in 2022.
“If he (Ruto) has an MoU with Uhuru Kenyatta, then that was an agreement between two individuals,” Murathe said in Vihiga during the Maragoli Cultural Celebrations.
Murathe is not an ordinary politician.
Apart from being Uhuru’s long-time friend, Murathe played a key role in a special group of senior individuals in government and from the financial sector, mainly from the Mt Kenya region. This group quietly but diligently campaigned for Uhuru’s re-election and raised a lot of money.
This group, its members trusted by the President, reportedly has been working behind the scenes to whose members are trusted by the president, has reportedly been working behind the scenes to sink Ruto’s political aspirations.
Murathe pronounced himself just a month after Uhuru himself appeared to throw Ruto under the bus, saying his choice of successor would be a “shocker”. The game plan was thrown into disarray.
In a terse statement to newsrooms yesterday, ex-Maragua MP Elias Mbau fired a rejoinder that the Kikuyu community will not succumb to blackmail into blindly supporting any candidate.
Mbau strongly backed Murathe that Kenyans must have the freedom to choose their leaders without being boxed into a corner.
“Our communities do mistrust each other because they are evil. They do so when they read evil in their leaders…The politics of extortion, corruption and arrogance must be opposed by all. We would better die on our feet than live on our knees,” Mbau said, calling a constitutional referendum a must.
Ruto is considered he face of the anti-referendum push backed by key opposition figures.
Further complicating the DP’s political matrix, the powerful Kikuyu Council of Elders had in June asked Ruto to be “satisfied with his 10-year tenure as DP” and not to aspire further.