Ruto reveals why he declined Raila running mate offer

By VINCENT BARTOO

Eldoret North MP William Ruto has explained reasons why he turned down an offer by Prime Minister Raila Odinga to be his running mate.

He also said working with other presidential candidates other than Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta would be “a gross miscalculation”.

Ruto complained of the PM’s abandonment and lack of concern for tribulations facing him, saying the PM called him for the first time in three years last month to ask him to back his presidential bid. “I was surprised and I kept asking myself whether he had run out of credit for the whole three years,” Ruto told a meeting of elders in Eldoret Wednesday.

Ruto said he put the PM to task for mistreating him and told him that he would not work with him politically.

 “I told him his payback time had come and he had to face the consequences of turning his back on an ally,” he added. Ruto said when the International Criminal Court indicted him over the post election violence, Raila never showed any empathy.

“I expected that he would have even called to express his concern because he knew where we, as his lieutenants then, were at the time we are said to have perpetrated the violence,” he said.

Ruto said Raila further allowed his party ODM to write letters pressing the international community to support and pursue the case against him and his co-accused at The Hague.

“He never came to my defence or asked his people to stop doing what they were doing. This showed he wanted me finished,” he said.

Ruto further complained that Raila sacked him as Agriculture Minister even though he earned the post from the votes he marshalled for ODM in the 2007 General Election.

“It was not a favour he was giving me. We earned those positions and so it was a big blunder for him to sack me,” he said.

Ruto also said the PM was not a trustworthy leader and accused him of serving foreign interests.

“He is one person I cannot trust. From what he has done to me, I am certain he would have sacrificed me (over the ICC case) if I decided to work with him,” he added.