OMWENGA: Ignore the noise, Mt Kenya will hold and determine 2027

Former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and former President Uhuru Kenyatta during the funeral service of former Kirinyaga Senator Daniel Karaba on April 1, 2026 /DENISH OCHIENG

Some of us have been closely following Kenyan politics for decades but one would be fibbing if we spoke with certainty what will happen in 2027. Yes, ask leaders of the United Alternative Government and their followers, and you’ll get an unequivocal ‘Wantam’. On the other hand, ask the incumbent and his supporters and they’ll shout at you loudly ‘Twotam’. They don’t offer reasons why, but that’s their response.

Of course, both can’t be right.

I leave it for another day to explore all the dynamics at play and how they may shape the 2027 election. For now, let me focus on what will no doubt determine the upcoming polls, no different than it has in the past - and that is the voting bloc of Mt Kenya.

To be sure, Mt Kenya’s political landscape is undergoing one of its most fluid and shaky periods since Independence. This phenomenon emerged at the seeding, planting and cultivation at the hands of the incumbent and his running mate in 2022 as they sought and succeeded in rendering a sitting president helpless to stop their freight train.

It cannot be said enough that the incumbent pulled off the impossible to be sworn as our fifth president and how this is something many of us congratulated him on, even before the ink dried on the Supreme Court’s affirmation of his election.

But this did not happen in a vacuum. Other factors came into play to produce this outcome, mostly at the incumbent’s (President William Ruto’s) instigation for sure, but also others even more critical served by history.

It was therefore quite surprising how the incumbent lost all that goodwill in Mt Kenya region and turned former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua into the thorn in the flesh he is, notwithstanding the Band-Aid he threw at the incumbent during the funeral of Ol Kalou MP David. 

It was the first time since their split in 2024 that President Ruto and estranged former DP shared the stage. Gachagua calmly lectured “brother” Ruto about residents’ needs and problems.

Prior to the DCP leader bursting onto the public stage, the unquestionable kingpin of the Mt Kenya region he specifically targeted to politically finish and neuter before the 2022 election was former President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Few saw that coming, especially given Uhuru’s roots, background and stature that combined made him a lame duck president still enjoying enormous political and institutional influence. Uhuru’s influence was built over decades through business networks, church relationships and county‑level patronage systems. This is the kind of structural capital — influence rooted in long‑standing institutions rather than immediate political conditions that is almost impossible to beat, but Ruto beat it.

By contrast, the man from Wamunyoro shocked the nation by showing how easy it could be to defeat someone with such background and influence — and a former boss to boot. Gachagua is riding on what can be more accurately described as situational influence.

His rise was shaped by the 2022 election cycle in which he largely trashed Uhuru and his family in a manner that endeared him to many in the region and also his boss, Ruto, who had unleashed him to politically finish Uhuru, and vicariously Raila. It worked.

Given the fallout between the incumbent and Gachagua, however, Mt Kenya today is more fragmented than in previous decades. Its influence is distributed across governors, MPs, business elites and emerging youth‑aligned figures.

This fragmentation has created a situation where no single figure automatically commands the region’s cohesion. Instead, there are at least two spheres of influence that have yet to be tested and cannot be tested to determine which weightier in time to make decisions ahead of 2027.

When Uhuru and Gachagua publicly met for the first time since the 2022 election circle and showed signs of good old friendship and camaraderie at former Kirinyaga Senator Daniel Karaba’s funeral, many saw that as the long-anticipated handshake between the two leaders from Mt Kenya.

That being the case, this is the million-dollar question now: would the two leaders work together alongside the rest of the United Alternative Government to select the coalition’s flagbearer in 2027?

If the mission is truly Wantam for both, it’ll be an easy ‘yes’ answer.