Raila on trial over Ruto’s fraud case

By KWENDO OPANGA
Posted Saturday, October 23 2010 at 16:20
In Summary

The fix: Although Kibaki suspended Ruto after court ruled he should answer fraud charges, his Kalenjin allies still put all the blame on Raila

It may be easier for suspended Higher Education minister William Ruto to win his battles in the courts of law than for Prime Minister Raila Odinga to win his against Mr Ruto in the court of public opinion.

It matters precious little that it was President Kibaki who suspended Mr Ruto from the Cabinet following consultations with the PM and on the advice of Attorney-General Amos Wako. It is Mr Odinga who suspended Mr Ruto.

In this scheme of things, Mr Odinga has taken advantage of the new Constitution and the case against Mr Ruto to derail the Eldoret North MP’s confident march to a confrontation with him in 2012.

What’s more, Mr Ruto has unstinting and unflinching support in the vote-rich Rift Valley. Therefore, Mr Odinga must calculate that with Mr Ruto out of the way, his hand will be greatly strengthened in the race for the presidency.

Let us look at the flip side. Is not Mr Ruto in a political quandary right now because of a legal quandary? The legal quandary befell him because he is alleged to have been involved in fraudulent sale of public land to a public institution. And did not Mr Ruto go to court to have the case against him dismissed?

The constitutional court ruled that Mr Ruto should stand trial in the fraud case. It ruled that Mr Ruto’s argument that the case against him was politically motivated could be made and argued in court.

That is a quandary because Section 62 (1) of the Anti-Corruption Act is clear that “a public officer who is charged with corruption or economic crime shall be suspended at half pay with effect from the date of the charge”.

What’s more, immediately the court ruled that Mr Ruto should stand trial, Gichugu MP Martha Karua, politicians and civil society groups demanded that the President and PM suspend the Eldoret North MP.

Then the new Constitution weighs in. It lays a great deal of premium on integrity in leadership and demands that leaders, public officers included, be persons of proven integrity. The court ruling cast a shadow on Mr Ruto’s integrity.

Mr Joshua Kutuny, the Cherangany MP, therefore makes sense. Why has it taken, in his words, 10 years, for the fraud case against Mr Ruto to be brought up? It does not make sense that myriad cases form what we have come to call the backlog in our court system.

Now, this fraud case that precipitated the current crisis for Mr Ruto was brought to the courts in 2004 when the minister in charge of Justice and Constitutional Affairs was Mr Kiraitu Murungi.

This is the time the new National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) government was eager to convince the world that it was fighting corruption. Having cruised to power on an anti-corruption platform, the government was also keen to be seen to be delivering on its campaign pledges.

It was at this time that Mr Murungi instituted the now infamous so-called radical surgery on the Judiciary. It was a fine mess and remains a major blot on Mr Murungi’s government CV. Again, the idea was that the Narc government was acting to rid the Judiciary of corruption.

The wheels came off the Narc bandwagon sooner than most Kenyans had expected and in the lead up to the 2005 referendum on the then proposed constitution, alliances shifted and Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga became allies.

The men stuck together through the tumult of late 2007 and early 2008, but soon afterwards it became clear that Mr Ruto was keen to put some distance between him and the PM as a certain Luis Moreno-Ocampo made entry into Kenya’s political arena.

The last straw came when Mr Ruto and the PM found themselves on opposite sides of the Mau Water Tower fence. I wrote at the time that Mr Odinga and Rift Valley MPs had come to a point of no return and the PM should plan his presidential race without them.

This came to pass when Mr Ruto and most of his Kalenjin allies campaigned against the new Constitution while the President and PM backed it and presented it as a government project.

Please don’t forget that earlier Mr Odinga had attempted to sack Mr Ruto and that PM’s lieutenants tried to punish him for campaigning against the new Constitution.

Mr Ruto certainly knows how to frame an issue and an opponent. This, he says, is not about fraud; it is about 2012. You see, I am more sinned against than sinning! If Mr Odinga says the same, he will use twice the energy Mr Ruto needed to convince.

The writer is a media consultant diplospeak@yahoo.com