Hate him or love him, Deputy President William Ruto is such a strategic thinker and political schemer that any opponent can only underestimate at their own peril.
Looking at the way he turns enemies to friends and friends to enemies in a twinkling of an eye, the self-declared king of the hustler nation is indeed very good at getting what he wants.
But this seeming genius seems to thrive mainly on the impairment of judgement of his targets either by sheer greed, personal ambition or just inborn laziness and dearth of deep comprehension.
A few cases come to mind when analysing the magic of the country’s first Deputy President.
Despite the bravado exhibited by ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi and Ford Kenya’s Moses Wetang’ula, they are just “escorts” in the UDA house renamed Kenya Kwanza Alliance.
Ford-K, ANC and other follower parties in the alliance were not brought in by Ruto’s UDA to form a nationally inclusive team. They are there to give the impression the alliance represents the face of Kenya.
UDA is the father of the coalition with the other parties as children, who are required to appear, smile and sloganeer to present a united family. This is clear in the national presentation of candidates for various positions.
In Nairobi, the three top positions — governor, senator and woman representative — were all reserved for UDA. The campaign billboards and all form of branding, including posters and vehicles, are all UDA.
In the news and in Kenya Kwanza’s favorite pressers, Johnson Sakaja, Millicent Omanga and Margaret Wanjiru are presented as Kenya Kwanza candidates, but the picture, which speaks a thousand words, shows that they are UDA candidates.
In a county as significant as Nairobi, being Kenya’s capital, the seat of power and the largest metropolitan area in terms of demographic composition and economic activity, one would expect UDA would be more accomodating to the other parties.
Instead, the DP’s party resorted to bullying the other partners out of the picture to try and have the big seats all for themslves. This clearly shows what Kenyans know as Kenya Kwanza is UDA and the rest of the parties are simply “escorts” in the journey. Were it not so, they would have atleast claimed a share of the seats in the city.
Of the 47 counties, UDA is fielding 33 candidates for governor. This leaves 14 counties. Of these, save the four Nyanza counties, where phobia for ODM did not allow them to field candidates lest they face great humiliation at the ballot. That leaves only 10 counties for the other parties to share positions from.
Still in Nairobi, Sakaja had to be poached from Musalia Mudavadi’s ANC, where he had initially found home because only UDA can get such an important slot. Anyway, it is understandable that the terms of forming the coalition put Mudavadi and other party leaders in a surbodinate position where they have to go by what the big party says and smile for the cameras in agreement.
Another sign that UDA means business in being the only visible and influential party in the alliance is the recent call by its top leaders to its followers to vote in only it’s candidates for all positions, popularly known as “six-piece” or “suit” voting.
This disadvantages candidates from the other parties in the alliance and is eventually aimed at denying them the numerical strength that could afford them a valid voice in decision making.
If these parties are not expected to have a fair chance of having their own candidates elected, how are they assured their ideologies and vision for Kenya will be accomodated in legislation and in grassroot projects?
The assurance is missing and one can only wonder what the real motivation for these parties to join Kenya Kwanza is.
Kilifi Governor Amason Kingi says he wants to leave Azimio to protest lack of zoning of Kilifi for his party, Pamoja Africa Alliance. Clearly, Ruto will not zone Kilifi for him because they already have UDA candidates.
Governor Alfred Mutua’s first signs that he was headed to Kenya Kwanza were a few weeks ago. He cited uncertainty on whether he would get campaign funding for his party. He even tried to evoke people’s imagination by saying that after joining Azimio, Kalonzo Musyoka started moving around like he had suddenly gotten a lot of money.
Does it mean Mutua imagined the very principled Kalonzo was paid to join Azimio and therefore expected the same? Could it be the motivation that had him migrate? Because, until two days ago, he never subscribed to anything about Kenya Kwanza and the leader, DP Ruto.
Ruto is known to stay his course. He began by declaring total disdain for coalitions. He maintained he would not team up with other parties, terming them village and tribal. With time, he realised he had to change tact and appear to accommodate regional figures. He cleverly poached and coerced them to join him. As it appears, however, these leaders only brought shells of their parties bearing only name recognition.
At the end of the day, UDA will be the strongest, if not the sole active party, in the alliance and DP Ruto’s word will be the law for the alliance. Genius that one!
So when, on Tuesday, UDA resource mobilization coordinator for South Eastern Moses Banda reminded newbies Mutua and Kingi that they should not come with demands but should respect the founder members as “the first wife”, he let the cat out of the bag.
In Kenya Kwanza, Ruto is the groom, UDA is the bride and all the rest are flower girls.
