The unintended effect is that as soon as the adulation gets into their heads, they consider themselves co-principals in the many coalitions that litter this country at election time, while making the false assumption that whatever tribal votes they deliver will give them a permanent place at the high table.
Post-election, many a politician has been rudely brought back down to earth when new machinations revolving around the next elections begin to manifest. Often, this is when new dynamics and alignments emerge. The reality the becomes clear that no one group of politicians or ideology can influence two consecutive elections. Those who rock stars in the previous elections become pariahs and are helped to drift away into obscurity. It’s a lonely space.
DP Rigathi Gachagua doesn’t seem to me to be an avid consumer of history or historical perspectives of the Kenyan political evolution. If he did, he would know by now that no sitting Kenya president has ever propped up his vice president or DP as a successor.
In the case of President Moi in 1978, we will never know, because his predecessor died suddenly in office. But every subsequent President, when leaving office, has supported someone other than his principal assistant to succeed him.
The DP fashions himself as an honest man. So, we will be honest too this time and inform him that the reason the gentlemen who have gone on to hold the office of President in Kenya do not see their deputies as presidential material is that at the time of appointing their principal assistants, the bosses go for colourless, unpopular, divisive and unpleasant characters whom they see as unacceptable in the national psyche but can deliver large blocks of tribal votes.
There is no better demonstration of this fact than the events surrounding the day Gachagua was picked to be Ruto’s running mate. Those who attended the meeting stated that nearly the entire Mount Kenya UDA leadership wanted current Interior CS Kithure Kindiki to be the coalition’s number two in the 2022 general election. Not many of them had any time for Gachagua and what they considered his crude ways. But Ruto overruled them and settled for the former Mathira MP.
In standing with Gachagua despite the strong opposition from within, Ruto not only kept with tradition by appointing someone whose popularity would not rise to any threatening levels in the power matrix, but the “I am the one who stood with you when they hated you” philosophy was apparently meant to keep Gachagua loyal and totally subservient to the whims of his boss. Except that Gachagua has an uncanny ability to make everything too difficult for himself.
The national political discourse has been awash with word that Ruto and the power wielders within government have had enough of the DP’s verbal antics and are creating a new order beyond 2027. I am among many who would toast to the betrayal of the DP, because his high office isn’t the place for all the divisive rhetoric that seems to be his pastime.
I am reminded of Justice Muga Apondi many years ago, who while slapping a relatively short sentence on a well-known manslaughter suspect, averred that “the deceased was the author of his own misfortune”, in acknowledging that the deceased’s constant poaching forays into the suspect’s ranch had been more likely to end badly at some point.
If Gachagua has spoken his way out of the centre of power, this is a good thing for nation building, and he is certainly the author of his own misfortune.
In a way, the DP is unable to overcome the nuisance political stage prevalent in campaigns. As the number two man and therefore a proverbial heartbeat away from the top job in the land, his job should be to unify the nation, especially if he has ambitions of succeeding his boss. But whenever the DP opens his mount, he comes out as uncouth, uncultured and plain repulsive.
It is understandable, for example, if he feels that the national dialogue talks may threaten his position if a political rapprochement between Ruto and ODM chief Raila Odinga comes out of the talks. But as DP, he doesn’t have the luxury of pouring cold water on talks aimed at restoring stability and a manageable country for his boss.
In the recent cabinet reshuffle, the Foreign Affairs portfolio was moved to Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi’s docket. It gives Mudavadi a brilliant opportunity to build the requisite international networks for a future presidential run, besides shining focus on one more role no sane person would entrust DP Gachagua with.
In fact, the DP can use both Mudavadi’s rising status and the perceived demotion of Moses Kuria from the coveted Trade and Industry portfolio as perfect lessons. CS Kuria’s continued stay in that office became untenable after the Americans became unwilling to attend bilateral talks in which he was present. Their beef with him revolved around his acidic tongue and divisive rhetoric. But Gachagua’s tongue makes Kuria’s own look like a preacher’s, which should tell the DP what the regime’s foreign masters really think of him.
A small news item in the papers last week may have escaped attention beyond regular media watchers. Powerful civil service boss, Felix Koskei, visited Luo Nyanza, and his speech, narrated to the residents the historical ties between his own Kalenjin people and the Luo. He stated that the two communities not only share a common Nilotic origin but had voted together in the recent past. His visit followed Ruto’s own tour of the same region.
The two both appeared to extend an olive branch to the Luo community, especially as it becomes clear by the day that Raila may not be on the ballot in 2027. For Gachagua, the calculations are pretty grim; his unending rhetoric means that in the Ruto succession play, he begins with a mountain to climb, because he effortlessly soils his own image every day by sticking to the old fashioned, one-party politics of gossip, narratives and divisions.
Beyond his old constituency of Mathira, it would be hard to find one place where the DP enjoys popularity.
For Ruto however, the chess board is just starting to look clearer. First, if Gachagua’s Kikuyu community chooses to bolt, he has to look to Western, among the Luo and the Luhya for new partnerships to replace them. He can even pick a new running mate from among the Western communities.
Secondly, his need to set a legacy in his anticipated second term obviously behoves him to avoid political gadflies in high places in his second term. Every regime has a place for such vociferous gadflies with high nuisance value.
You would think Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei is already playing this role effectively. That a person of the calibre of DP chooses to base his own politics at this level is unacceptable. Which is why, the sooner he becomes a peripheral relic in national politics, the better for national unity.
Political commentator
