Handshake triggers disquiet, rekindles Ruto-Raila rivalry

When he is politicking, Deputy President William Samoei Ruto refers to opposition leader Raila Amolo Odinga, in jest, as “yule jamaa wa vitendawili (that guy who loves using parables)”. This time around this teaser has come to Mr Ruto’s own doorstep as he now labours to unravel the loaded kitendawili that is Mr Odinga’s handshake with President Uhuru Kenyatta. 

And there is no denying this development has caused as much confusion as apprehension within the DP’s political camp. When news of the Uhuru-Raila meeting at Harambee House first came through on March 9, the DP congratulated the two leaders for “demonstrating statesmanship” in uniting the country.

But this is no longer the feeling within the DP’s camp. Although he has not personally or directly contradicted the President for his political overture to the former Prime Minister – Mr Ruto’s former party boss and political ally turned foe – the DP’s foot soldiers have openly expressed reservations over the newfound Uhuru-Raila relationship.

GOOD PAY

Senate Leader of Majority Kipchumba Murkomen, for instance, who called for Mr Odinga “to be given an official office and good pay so that he can serve Kenyans” during the funeral of Mzee Willy Kaino Kilimo in Elgeyo Marakwet County on March 17, has since changed tune.

Mr Murkomen, a close ally of the DP, is now on record talking of emergence of “political dynasties” to block Mr Ruto’s 2022 presidential bid.  

Similarly, Leader of Majority in the National Assembly Aden Duale, who observed that he had “all along known the former Prime Minister as a great statesman who has always placed the interests of his country ahead of his personal ambitions” moments after the Harambee House meeting, is now less enthusiastic about the handshake.

Having teamed up with the former PM in ODM a decade ago alongside the DP, Mr Duale indeed understands Mr Odinga fairly well. That he now has second thoughts over the handshake between his former boss and his current boss, President Kenyatta, is a pointer to the thinking within Ruto’s camp.  

HANDSHAKE

But this is not the only handshake causing discomfort to the DP and his allies. There is also the one between Mr Ruto and retired President Daniel arap Moi, which flopped last Thursday. In a way, Mr Ruto’s backers believe the two handshakes are related as far as the 2022 electoral intrigues are concerned. To them, Mr Moi and Mr Odinga are one and the same in this game.

Earlier on August 11, 2011, an enraged Mr Ruto stressed the link between Mr Moi and Mr Odinga in character, by claiming they were both tyrants and dictators. The then Eldoret North MP had just been sacked as Cabinet minister from the Grand Coalition Government, alongside Mr Duale, who was assistant minister for Livestock.   At a press conference at Parliament Buildings, Ruto charged that Raila was not, in anyway, different from such leaders as former President Moi who rewarded his sycophants by giving them ministerial positions previously held by those he perceived disloyal.

The political love and hate affair of the two Rs – Ruto and Raila – kicked off in earnest in 2001, barely three years after Mr Ruto had joined elective politics as MP for Eldoret North.

Together with Prof Julia Ojiambo, then Director of Women Youth Affairs at the Kanu party, Mr Ruto was tasked to work with and fine tune a framework of cooperation between the cockerel party and Mr Odinga’s National Development Party (NDP).     

POLITICAL RIVAL

It is worth noting that Mr Odinga was initially introduced to Moi by Mr Reuben Chesire, Mr Ruto’s political rival whom he had just dislodged from Parliament as Eldoret North MP. As the DP has previously explained he was just Mzee’s (Moi) mtu ya mkono (an aide), otherwise the Mr Mark Too, then Nominated MP, was the engine behind the moves to bring Mr Odinga on board.    

The arrival Mr Odinga at Kanu dealt a blow – though momentarily -- to a number of political careers, including Mr Ruto’s. In a new arrangement, Mr Odinga replaced Mr Joseph Kamotho as Kanu Secretary General, while Mr Ruto, who had been inching closer to the Secretary General’s position, was pushed further into the periphery. But the real beef would follow in 2002, when Mr Odinga engineered rebellion within the cockerel party and walked away to join Mr Mwai Kibaki in forming the National Rainbow Coalition, leaving Kanu’s presidential bid in shambles.     

Kanu, whose candidate was Mr Uhuru Kenyatta with Mr Ruto among key allies, lost to Narc in the subsequent polls in 2002. But the chemistry between Mr Odinga and Mr Ruto would gain ground again in 2005 when the Raila-led rebel wing of Liberal Democratic Party in Kibaki’s government teamed up with the Uhuru-led opposition side to defeat the constitutional referendum. 

While Mr Kenyatta walked away to team up with Kibaki in the Party of National Unity Coalition, Mr Ruto opted to stay on with Mr Odinga, who ran on an ODM ticket in 2007.

BOTCHED ELECTIONS

After the botched elections, followed by violence, Mr Ruto stuck out his neck in defence of his party boss’ “stolen victory”, especially at KICC where results were being announced.

Observers have argued that the two “Rs” are not only indefatigable campaigners, but very uniform in political style and aggressiveness. Also contributing to the current heightened tensions between them, observes Prof Peter Kagwanja a political affairs commentator, is their tenacity and inexhaustible energy: “Unlike other potential competitors such as Kalonzo (Musyoka) or (Musalia) Mudavadi, their aggressive political style has enabled them to mobilize way beyond the numbers of their primary ethnic constituencies”.

And former Teso North MP, Arthur Odera, who is a close ally of the DP, adds that the two are assertive and ambitious individuals who would be “unstoppable” if they teamed up.

But Prof Amukowa Anangwe observes that the perceived strengths could be a weakness for the two ahead of the 2022 elections: “It has become a zero-sum competition in which one must vanquish the other by all means in order to survive, depending also on whom Uhuru will lend a helping hand”.

BATTLE GROUND

However observers see little room for a Raila-Ruto political merger. Singling out Central Kenya as the next battle ground for the two, Prof Kagwanja observes the DP has built a seemingly invisible political juggernaut in the region consisting mainly of elected MPs, governors and senators.

But Prof Anangwe opines that another possibility could be that the political animosity between the two is misguided as both may well be in Mr Kenyatta’s crosshairs for annihilation to enable the President succeed himself in 2022 by becoming a powerful Prime Minister through manipulation of the Constitution.

Either way, Mr Odera observes that Ruto backers view Mr Odinga as one upsetting Jubilee’s succession plans. Perhaps only a clear discerning of the Uhuru-Raila handshake kitendawili will calm tempers between Raila and Ruto.