Pundits are giving a free Deputy President William Ruto unsolicited advice: He cannot tie his political career to hope and a fluid memorandum of understanding. They have told him the history of coalitions is replete with dashed hopes and trashed ‘gentlemen’s’ agreements.
The ‘King of the Rift’ will then need to temper his presidential ambition with the counsel of history. This ambition got new gravitas after the International Criminal Court last week returned a verdict of mistrial in the case of the Deputy President and his co-accused Joshua Sang.
If the Deputy President’s hope of succeeding his Jubilee partner President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2022 is crushed, Ruto would not be the first victim of betrayal. Nor would the URP leader be the last to fall to the allure of the tempest. Ruto has the coalition experiences of opposition leader Raila Odinga and Wiper boss Kalonzo Musyoka to learn from.
It’s easy for ‘senior’ partners to give flowery promises when desperate, but it is a different reality when the rubber hits the road. President Mwai Kibaki reneged on the Narc promise of 2002 once the deal was done. Then LDP kingmaker Raila Odinga was sidelined weeks after playing a lead role in ejecting Kanu from power. Once Daniel Moi was gone after 24 years in State House, Raila’s political value diminished in the eyes of the insiders of the Kibaki presidency.
When the country was burning in 2008, President Kibaki applied the cheek of the biblical snake to win over Kalonzo Musyoka from the opposition. Kibaki needed parliamentary reinforcement of then ODM-Kenya MPs to anchor his battered claim to victory in the 2007 contentious presidential election. The promise of a front-lane position in the Kibaki succession and appointment to the vice-presidency did it for a president who craved a second term. But Kibaki’s promises to Kalonzo collapsed in the face of the House of Mumbi losing power to an outsider — again.
Kalonzo served full term as the Vice President during Kibaki’s second tenure, while banking on a promise that crashed months to the 2013 general election. While Kalonzo invested his ambition entirely on hope and a fluid promise, insiders knew the VP was a rank outsider in the Kibaki succession.
Ruto can be certain of winning Uhuru’s and his family’s individual votes, but he cannot be sure of inheriting the President’s political turf. Ruto may know this from experience but hope may still remain in his psyche.
How the DP can invest his energised ambition has been the subject of political punditry for a week. He is the preferred bride of the coming general election. Ruto can run for President in 2017, which he would lose after compromising the Jubilee vote. He can also stick with his current coalition partner, serve another term as Deputy President, but he cannot bank on inheriting Uhuru’s Mt Kenya vote.
Ruto can also pick a different bridegroom for the 2017 presidential election, serve another term as DP, while building additional networks for 2022. He would then have signed into a new team, with a chance of winning two terms as President in the post-Uhuru era. On this front, cynical pundits are pointing at the direction of ODM, where Ruto played kingmaker in 2007.