UHURU AND RUTO: THE INEVITABLE DIVORCE

Miguna Miguna, BA, LLB, LLM. Prime Minister's Advisor, Coalition Affairs, Joint Secretary of the Permanent Committee on the Management of Grand Coalition Affairs
Office Of The Prime Minister Republic of Kenya.The Prime Minister's Building Po Box 74434-00200 Nairobi, Kenya.

By Miguna Miguna

So – ‘Ruto under pressure to take on Uhuru’ (Star, May 23). No surprises there, then. It had to happen. For all their purported ‘unity’, each of these two and every one of the so-called ‘G7’ group secretly thinks they should be the next president.

On the ground, their ‘unity’ evaporates like early morning dew in the sunshine. And nowhere are the wounds of past conflict and suspicion as deep and festering as between Ruto’s and Uhuru’s purported supporters in the Rift Valley.

It is notable that none of the ‘prayer meetings’ has been held in the volatile South or North Rift. And have the region’s IDPs felt free to return to their homes? They have not. Many have openly said they are too frightened. This alone tells you all you need to know about relations in the Rift Valley.

At the so-called ‘prayer’ meeting after The Hague appearances, ecstatic youth (looking suspiciously ‘under the influence’) clutched posters bearing Uhuru’s portrait and the word ‘President’. There was the occasional Ruto poster, proclaiming ‘Vice-President’, while poor old Kalonzo Musyoka missed out altogether.

Right there and then, we knew the ‘KKK marriage’ was dead. Kalonzo was always on his own. Saitoti peeled off long ago. Only Eugene Wamalwa is still joyously (naively) embracing his flower-girl role. (And Eugene’s so-called Ikolomani beachhead is a particular joke, seeing that he is not even a member of New Ford-Kenya, which only has two MPs anyway. Is this the force Raila should be afraid of?)

Each of the G7 members holds his plans and strategies close to his chest. During the day, they meet, eat and hug. At night, they separately scheme and conspire.

The Star reported that Ruto’s key advisers are not comfortable with the running-mate role. They want Uhuru to back Ruto for president “in reciprocation for the Kalenjin support in 2002 when Uhuru ran on the Kanu ticket but lost”. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

But the cracks in the Uhuruto alliance are growing. There is already bickering over parliamentary, senate and gubernatorial seats. Isaac Ruto and Julius Kones are reportedly at each other’s throats over the Bomet County governorship. Uhuru allies recently came to blows within the precincts of Parliament.

Apparently, Ruto thinks he can run for president and, after losing (he expects to come third after Raila and Uhuru), he can be Uhuru’s running-mate for the second-round ballot, when he and Uhuru believe they can defeat Raila.

There is nothing unusual about Ruto’s failing to read or understand the Constitution. After all, he opposed it previously without having read it, if his rally pronouncements during the referendum are anything to go by; what he said then bore little relation to what the Constitution actually states.

But his ‘strategists’ should be telling him that the Constitution is crystal clear on this point. If no one wins an overall majority in the first round of the presidential vote, only the top two candidates and their running-mates will be on the second-round ballot. No change of running-mate is permitted. You have to make up your mind. You either want to be president or deputy president. You can’t vie for both.

And regrettably for Ruto and Uhuru, no Kenyan community will all vote for any particular candidate. Kenya has about 22.4 million potential voters aged over 18 and a few more millions in the Diaspora, bringing that close to 25.4 million in all. Only about 1.3 million of them are Kalenjin. Many might vote for Ruto. But a large number will still vote for Raila.

The much-vaunted Central Province (read Kikuyu) votes total about five million maximum. So, even if all Kalenjin and Kikuyu voters backed Uhuru and Ruto, that would be about 6.3 million out of 25.4 million, leaving 19.1 million votes for harvesting. I believe that whoever is the nationalist presidential candidate in 2012 will get a sizeable number of those 19.1 million votes, and emerge victorious.

Nor are post-election coalitions provided for in the Constitution. You choose your party early (six months before any election, says the Constitution) and then you stick with it, come hell or high water.

That means declared presidential candidate Professor James Ole Kiyapi is already ahead of Ruto. Kiyapi has a party. Ruto does not, despite threatening umpteen times to leave ODM and even saying he is now the leader of UDM. He does not have the courage to actualise these empty-debe pronouncements.

Wamalwa, Saitoti and Uhuru are stewing in the same pot. They have no vehicles to State House. And poor old Kalonzo’s is punctured. Nobody knows who owns PNU or the PNU Alliance, and KKK is a chauvinistic chimera that cannot even take you to the barber shop.

What with all this, and the ICC proceedings still hanging like an albatross round their necks, the two ‘presidential front-runners’ are seeing their 2012 plans turning into a nightmare. Imagine what will happen when Moreno-Ocampo’s evidence (especially those NSIS and CCK dossiers against Ruto) starts dripping like ice on Uhuruto.

The KKK (or is it G7?) boat is taking water alarmingly, even before it sets sail. Its exuberant passengers, like those on the ill-fated Titanic, have been making merry and dancing on the deck as if it was Noah’s Ark. But the dreamboat is fast turning into a shipwreck. The alliance is emerging as the phantom it is, and a phantom never won a presidential election.


Mr Miguna is the PM’s adviser on coalition affairs. The views expressed here are his own.