The relationship between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto has exploded and is likely to get worse 99 days to the August 9 general election.
Acrimony has existed for months. At first, the criticism was muted, and mutual, then there were barbs, then slingshots and arrows. Now they're using Stinger Missiles. Brace for the heavy artillery.
Skeptics have began raising the red flag on the possibility of a troubled transition as the fighting has become deeply personal.
In three separate public meetings in a single week, the two leaders have not shaken hands.
Their demeanour has been hostile, though Ruto smiles a lot.
As the rhetoric ratcheted up, the two leaders publicly took on each other on Sunday as the President dared the DP to resign and rubbished Ruto's election pledges as empty promises.
"Insults and empty promises will take you nowhere,"a visibly agitated Uhuru said at the Labour Day celebrations at Nyayo National Stadium. "Mambo ya kuongea matope na matusi haijengi nchi."
At the Labour Day fete, Uhuru tore into Ruto, terming him an absentee deputy who has resorted to inciting the public against his administration.
“Where are you? Instead of helping me to solve the problem, you are in the market saying, ask that person [Uhuru]. Then you should have resigned and allowed me to pick someone who can help me,” the President said.
Sorry, my boss. I feel your pain. Those to whom you assigned my responsibilities [including to CS Fred Matiang'i] and ‘Project’ Mzee [Raila] have let you down miserably
Clearly angry, Uhuru said that Ruto has been heaping blame on him for all the problems the country faces, instead of helping him provide solutions in the wake of Covid-19 and economic turmoil triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war.
“Instead of coming to help me, and tell me you have this advice, and other ways we can use to rescue our people, you are in the market abusing me,” the President said.
"And you call yourself a leader. You [say] I don’t know you are in which position in the leadership of Kenya," he added.
Ruto responded almost immediately, telling off his boss for taking away his responsibilities, assigning them to other people and creating a 'project' [Raila Odinga] that bungled the government’s development agenda.
“Sorry, my boss. I feel your pain. Those to whom you assigned my responsibilities [including to CS Fred Matiang'i] and ‘Project’ Mzee [Raila] have let you down miserably,” the DP posted on his Twitter handle.
“They bungled our Big Four, killed our party and wasted your second term. Wao ni bure kabisa. ("They are worthless people"), he said.
The DP went on to sarcastically tell his boss he was a phone call away, should he need his help.
He said the last Cabinet meeting happened two years ago, emphasising what he calls dysfunction in government.
“Boss, am available. Just a phone call away. Sadly last Cabinet was two years ago. Yule No.2,” he said.
This was the worst public altercation between Uhuru and Ruto since they fell out three years ago.
Last evening, there was speculation the government could begin denying Ruto more government privileges 'for disrespecting' the President.
One could be to eliminate Ruto's role in the Madaraka Day celebrations on June 1. There would not be a chair for him.
Despite a Church order not to politick at the funeral service of President Mwai Kibaki, Ruto and the President indirectly threw jabs at each other
In fact, they both extolled Kibaki to indirectly bash each other, contrasting them with Kibaki.
On Friday, Ruto declared Kibaki the greatest president Kenya ever had, discrediting his boss.
In Othaya on Saturday, Ruto likened Kibaki's meteoric political rise to his own. They both came from humble beginnings.
Ruto
said Kibaki is the best demonstration of Ruto's bottom-up economic model.
"If there is a demonstration of bottom-up, we can learn from Mwai Kibaki. We must be inspired by President Mwai Kibaki.
"We must keep the doors of opportunity open for many more children in this village, and many other villages in Kenya, to be great in their nation if they work hard and pray."
He publicly ridiculed the handshake with Raila, an initiative the President has often praised.
"Let us make sure the election will be peaceful and it will not be necessary to have a handshake. We owe it to President Mwai Kibaki as we send him off," Ruto said.
On Sunday, Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen, Ruto’s close ally, also took on the President for sidelining the DP in favour of Raila.
“President Kenyatta is now regretting that his handshake scheme to sideline Deputy President worked against him,” he said.
“In 2019, he issued an Executive Order No.1 stripping the DP of any responsibilities which left him [Uhuru] exposed, clueless and rudderless. He has no one to blame but himself.”
In his Labour Day speech, the President heaped praises on Raila for standing with him during difficult times and rallied Kenyans to elect him.
“That is why I thank this Mzee. Even if he had his issues, he came to help me. That is the truth of the matter,” the President said.
"He knew this was not a personal problem, it is a problem of the country and the world and we needed to help each other and discuss ways of helping our people,” he said.
He criticised his deputy for opposing his BBI bid with Raila to amend the Constitution and remove the provisions that were problematic to Kenyans.
“Me and my brother Raila moved around the country and said we needed a chance to change the Constitution because there were some articles that were not good for Kenyans….”
“We sweat trying to change the Constitution but others said they did not want to,” the President said.
Last Friday, Uhuru had also fired an indirect shot at Ruto during Kibaki's funeral service.
He assailed his deputy for intolerance and making populist decisions instead of the right decisions and being inflexible at the expense of the country.
“He [Kibaki] knew he could not fulfil his purpose in the presence of cheering crowds. He had to do this in the privacy of his space,” the President said.
“And how do you measure a man under whose watch Kenya experienced our darkest moment in 2007?” the President asked, referring to the 2007-08 election violence.
“Yet at this moment, Honourable Kibaki shook the hand of his bitter opponent and invited him to form government with him on a 50:50 basis, despite opposition from some of his own supporters,” he said.
It was an indirect but blindingly obvious attack on Ruto who has opposed his handshake with Raila.
The two leaders never shook hands at recent events.
They also did not also shake hands when the President received Kibaki’s body in Parliament last Monday. It lay in state for three days.
At Kibaki’s burial in Othaya on Saturday, they did not shake hands, despite sitting metres apart.
The country's second in command, however, took the solemn opportunity to hurl unmistakable grenades at at Uhuru for forgetting the common man, the ‘hustlers’.
“Even as he thought about the big infrastructure projects, President Mwai Kibaki did not forget ordinary people," Ruto said.
"That is why Kibaki made sure motorbikes were zero rated. Today, it is a sector that hires close to 1.4 million people,” he said.
The DP has often accused the government of destroying small business through demolitions and impounding of motorbikes.
Ruto went ahead to eulogise Kibaki as the best demonstration of his bottom-up economic model by rising from a sleepy village in Othaya to become a great scholar and leader who transformed millions of lives.
“If there is a demonstration of bottom-up, we can learn from Mwai Kibaki. We must be inspired by him. We must keep the doors of opportunity open for many more children in this village and many other villages in Kenya to be great in their nation,” he held.
The DP has often taken Uhuru and Raila as dynasties who were born with silver spoons in their mouths.
(Edited by V. Graham)
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