Sometimes back, I heard Deputy President William Ruto saying he has the numbers in the National Assembly and the Senate.
Reason? He believed he had managed to whip up the majority of legislators behind his ‘hustler nation’ narrative.
From the onset, he put up a spirited fight of giving the ‘Handshake’ deal and Building Bridges Initiative a bad name. Here, he seemed to borrow from the saying, if you want to kill a dog, first give it a bad name.
Listening to DP’s allies, President Uhuru Kenyatta’s decision to shake hands with ODM leader Raila Odinga, his main challenger in 2013 and 2017 presidential elections, is the straw that broke the camel’s back. This was tantamount to ‘throwing his deputy under the bus’.
But the President won’t have allowed them to politicise and poison the minds of Kenyans. He repeatedly stated 2022 elections and his succession was not [part of the handshake deal.
As DP allies stuck to their gun, many Kenyans argued this was because of the fear that Raila posed a real threat to Ruto’s candidature.
The ODM leader had previously vied four presidential elections and, though he never won, he left a remarkable mark. In 2007, he gave President Mwai Kibaki a run for his money. At the time, Ruto was his ardent ally and this explains why he considers him to be a threat.
When he took over, President Uhuru Kenyatta started building on the foundation President Kibaki had laid down. For instance, Big Four agenda is a key pillar of Kibaki’s Vision 2030.
Uhuru’s wish is to hand over the baton of power to a person who follows the same path. He has, however, previously reiterated that Kenya is a democratic country governed by rule of law. So, Kenyans will decide on who succeeds him at the ballot.
So, back to Parliament, we saw what happened when the MPs voted on the Constitution of Kenya [Amendment] Bill, 2020. Once again, the DP’s men let him down.
Majority of them, including those who had curved a niche of being his ardent loyalists, overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Bill.
One of them was Bahati MP Kimani Ngunjiri who said he cannot allow politics to enter into his head to an extent of shooting proposals meant to uplift the economic livelihoods of his community.
“The creation of the additional constituencies would mean more money coming to my county, Nakuru. The same would apply to Mt Kenya and other regions which are over-populated,” he said.
The other was Msambweni MP Fiesal Bader, whose campaign was led by DP’s allies to secure the seat.
I, therefore, hope the voting taught Ruto a big lesson. It seems most of those supporting him do not believe in his leadership. Some are rent seekers and for them, it is about the money.
Mutua Ndonga is a social commentator and blogger
Nairobi
