Ruto’s woes in 2022 succession is drama from familiar script

President Uhuru Kenyatta (left) and Deputy William Ruto at Harambee House Annex for their meeting on March 26, 2019. Mr Ruto is battling detractors in his quest to succeed Mr Kenyatta. PHOTO | JONAH MWANGI | DPPS

What you need to know:

  • Power barons around ageing and ailing Mzee Kenyatta would go to great lengths to block VP Moi, painting him as not good enough for the presidency.
  • Odinga defected from Kanu to join the opposition ranks, introducing a third dynamic that enabled him to play impasse breaker when he declared “Kibaki Tosha”.

The hurdles facing Deputy President William Ruto’s ambitions to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta are part of a familiar story in Kenya’s past four transitions.

Like past perceived frontrunners, Dr Ruto will need a thick skin, particularly to ward off two key threats: Establishment forces who feature local rivals and their shadowy “deep state” backers, and external “international community” interests pulling diplomatic strings.

Fierce resistance against apparent frontrunners by establishment forces has been the norm rather than the exception in the past four power transitions.

The script for change of guard at State House featured incumbent power barons weaving a web of intrigues to push through a preferred successor even as they swore by the gods of democracy.

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, who was independent Kenya’s first Head of State, set the tough ground rules on succession.

SECURITY RISK

Colonial Governor Patrick Renison described Mzee Kenyatta as “an African leader unto darkness and death” in 1959, to which Mzee Kenyatta retorted that “my leadership is unto light and prosperity”.

On March 20, 1961, Sir Renison pushed his message in a national radio broadcast.

“I love Kenya too much to risk releasing Kenyatta ... in spite of great difficulties after Mau Mau horrors, it is my view that Jomo Kenyatta should be kept in restriction indefinitely. I do not propose to release him until the security risk can be accepted and contained.”

By security risk, the governor meant the dread among European settlers, the colonial powers, their loyalists and the church in Kikuyuland that civil war would break upon Kenyatta’s release.

This dread was fuelled by horror stories brought to Nairobi by whites fleeing the Congo (now DRC) immediately after independence in 1960.

MAU MAU

Years earlier, there was a memorandum by prominent Africans in support of a colonial policy to let Mzee Kenyatta and his compatriots rot in detention.

“Due to your evil actions, the government has justifiably decided that no Mau Mau leader should ever return to Kikuyu country. We have endorsed and recommended the decision... declaring all Mau Mau leaders banished and should never return to Kikuyuland for good,” read the chilling memorandum dated January 27, 1954.

On behalf of then Kiambu District, they included senior Chief Josiah Njonjo, father of Kenyatta’s long-serving Attorney General Charles Njonjo, Chief Magugu Waweru, the Rev Wanyoike Kamwe, Councillor Mbira, Chief Kibathi Gitangu, Rev Williams Njoroge (for the Presbyterian Church of East Africa) and Canon Samuel Nguru (for Anglican Church).

On behalf of then-Nyeri District, the epicentre of Mau Mau activities and home to Mau Mau legends, Senior Chief Muhoya, the first African Head of PCEA in East Africa, Rev Charles Muhoro Kareri, and Chief Eliud Mugo (Mathira) signed.

DETENTION

For Murang’a District (Fort Hall) were senior chief Njiiri Karanja, Chief Ignatio Murai (late cabinet minister John Michuki’s father-in-law), the Rev Alijah Gachanja and Chief Samuel Githu. Other signatories were from Embu and the Rift Valley.

While one may excuse loyalist chiefs and religious leaders of European missionary denominations, it still leaves many conflicted that celebrated nationalists James Gichuru, Harry Thuku, Eliud Mathu and Muchoki Gikonyo had lent their names and political credentials to the memorandum.

Mzee Kenyatta would remain in detention until August 1961, after a group of activists organised a secret conference at Nyeri County Hall, Ruring’u, on December 26, 1960, bringing together all the signatories of the 1954 memorandum, to write and sign a counter document.

The gist of the counter memorandum that would be secretly sneaked to White Hall was that there would be no civil war should Mzee Kenyatta be released.

The counter memorandum, coupled with political pressure, compelled colonial authorities to cave in and relent on Mzee Kenyatta’s status.

MOI ERA

Fast forward to the second half of the 1970s, and establishment power barons around ageing and ailing Mzee Kenyatta would go to great lengths to block vice president Daniel arap Moi, painting him as not good enough for the presidency.

VP Moi put on a harmless and humble persona behind a thick political skin to brave it all, till his turn came.

Attorney General Njonjo would cleverly neutralise the 'change-the-constitution' group by threatening treason charges against those suggesting the President’s death.

Mr Moi’s skin too would be saved by a group of senior civil servants, among them then-AG Njonjo, then-head of public service Geoffrey Kareithi, with support of political actors inside Kenyatta’s court, among them Mwai Kibaki.

Averting a succession crisis, this group insisted on a constitutional transition, devoid of political skulduggery advanced by Moi’s opponents after Mzee Kenyatta died in August 1978. President Moi would go on to rule for 24 years.

MOI SUCCESSOR

Come 2002, leader of official opposition and former VP Mwai Kibaki had emerged as a frontrunner in the Moi succession race.

However, there were Kanu insiders like another former VP George Saitoti, Raila Odinga and Kalonzo — but none was deemed a frontrunner.

They eventually exited Kanu after President Moi picked Uhuru Kenyatta as his successor.

Mr Kibaki’s critical credential was that he could mobilise the significant Mt Kenya votes and deny Moi’s candidate a base.

As a dashing youthful candidate, Mr Kenyatta’s surname gave him an edge apart from the benefit of the state machinery.

Leading voices inside the opposition rank and file also loudly grieved and lamented that Kibaki was not a dyed-in-the-wool reformist but was perceived as a reluctant convert to the multipartyism in 1991.

The elephant in the room was also that Mr Kibaki was from Central Kenya, just like the first President.

VOTES BASKET

In his 2012 memoir, An Odyssey in Kenyan Politics, Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi captures the nerve-wracking arguments Mr Kibaki had to endure before being endorsed as flagbearer for the National Alliance (Party) of Kenya made up of DP (Kibaki), Ford Kenya (Kijana Wamalwa) and Charity Ngilu’s National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK).

“During a crucial meeting on August 8, 2002, NAK presidential candidate Charity Ngilu took the bull by the horns, pointing out that the biggest bloc of NAK votes was Central Kenya with over two million votes. If Kibaki was not the candidate, these votes would go to Uhuru Kenyatta (then Kanu candidate) and NAK would fall,” the memoir recounts.

At the time, Mr Kibaki was facing a fierce opposition from Ford-Kenya, based on ethnic representation in the presidency.

The stalemate about Mr Kibaki’s status would remain unresolved until ODM leader Raila Odinga defected from Kanu to join the opposition ranks, introducing a third dynamic that enabled him to play impasse breaker when he declared “Kibaki Tosha”.

ICC CASES

Years later, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto would go to hell and back to win the 2013 Kibaki succession elections against all odds.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments were hanging over their heads over alleged crimes against humanity and a constitutional change opened doors to court challenges over their eligibility.

International pressure piled on voters, the state and President Kibaki, with veiled diplomatic threats that “choices have consequences”.

Like Kibaki in 2002, the old ethnic identity narrative of one person from Central Kenya replacing another emerged.

Again, as in the previous three transitions, forces external to the Kibaki logic and succession designs intervened, at a most delicate moment after the death of Prof George Saitoti changed many dynamics.

Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto eventually won the presidency against Cord.

It appears history is repeating itself in so many ways as Dr Ruto, the early perceived frontrunner, faces challenges years before the elections. What strategies will he apply to survive?