- Others before Ruto dealt, many times over, with the prejudices of the System. His emotive reactions show he is ill prepared to confront rejection and ejection.
- But he can still take the initiative to bolt, in readiness to fight the System from outside the official ring.
There is the System and then there is the Deep State. The two are different in modus operandi, but they work in tandem. Deputy President William Ruto should be an insider of the System, whose National Security Council he chairs in the absence of the President.
The sooner the DP understands the System owes him nothing, the better for his rebranding. For as long he stands inside spewing epithets against the System, he would find it harder mobilising for his 2022 do-or-die presidential run. Even finding a viable running mate would be hard because it would be a dead-end race. But suicidal pacesetters may still stick.
“You may have the System....” The ‘You’ is the President who chairs the System. But even after the declaration, the DP still says: “I’m the Deputy President, and therefore I speak from full advantage of knowledge as the holder of such an office.” A lady does not remind people she is one—it should be self-evident. A tiger, to quote Prof Wole Soyinka, does not proclaim its tigritude, it pounces.
For sometime now, the System has been asking for a stop to early presidential campaigns to allow the government to concentrate on the President’s legacy projects. This call has been defied.
The latest rant against the Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti is likely to muddle succession waters for the DP. This is not the first time he is challenging the DCI, the System’s crime-buster.
The second in command can now appreciate that, what appeared like destination State House five years ago is a mirage. But the co-president is determined to pursue the illusion in spite of his own admission that the System spurns him. The ball, so to speak, is on the other foot. The DP should understand that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones, at least not belligerently. He has been throwing stones without considering they could hit him.
The ‘Nusu Mkate’ government jibe the DP often threw at former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has returned to haunt him. The year 2016 was the height of this hubris.
Raila, Kalonzo and Saitoti were victims of the System and the Deep State. But no politician knows the ferocity of the System and the Deep State more than Raila. He was maligned, harassed, intimidated, jailed, detained, and denied a presidential win in 2007.
“We defeated them when they were in power as prime minister and vice president. Now that they are out, we shall again beat them roundly.” The DP was then referring to end-days of the coalition government. Raila was prime minister. Kalonzo Musyoka was vice president. But the DP did not consider the input of the System and the Deep State in their controversial win of the 2013 presidential election.
The DP is also yet to recognise the massive muddle of the August 2017 presidential election, which the Supreme Court nullified. Before that election, the System eliminated a conscientious electoral agency ICT manager. It also infiltrated the electoral commission.
While the DP was still in the System, he promised the Jubilee government—a marriage of his defunct URP and the president’s TNA party—would be a jolly ride of the duo, who then appeared joined at the hip.
The Jubilee bond of power has snapped. The tension between President Kibaki’s PNU and Raila’s ODM, between 2008 and 2012, pales in comparison with Jubilee’s ferocious feuds. The intrigues are cannibalising the Jubilee regime.
Running on the Jubilee Party presidential ticket in 2013, Ruto and Uhuru were the System’s favourites. As International Criminal Court suspects, they were initially assumed to be bad for business. But the thinking of the Kibaki System changed on realising the alternative was the change-charged Raila.
Others before Ruto dealt, many times over, with the prejudices of the System. His emotive reactions show he is ill prepared to confront rejection and ejection. But he can still take the initiative to bolt, in readiness to fight the System from outside the official ring.
Raila, Kalonzo, the late George Saitoti were victims of the System and the Deep State. But no politician knows the ferocity of the System and the Deep State more than Raila. He was maligned, harassed, intimidated, jailed, detained, and denied a presidential win in 2007.
The Deep State, a covert network of powerful brokers operating outside the State’s political leadership, always has its way. The System is the malevolent executioner of the intrigues of the Deep State, aka power Mafia.