President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto during the 12th National Prayer Breakfast at Safari Park hotel in Nairobi on May 29, 2014. The Deputy President is the President’s principal assistant, and oversees functions the President assigns him. PHOTO | BILLY MUTAI NATION MEDIA GROUP
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The URP wing of Jubilee Alliance has been living a dream, the dream that they share power and are equal partners in the Jubilee Alliance, the dream that they hold some decisive say on the everyday matters of State and that they have a muscle to flex against TNA.
The foil around which this assumption is constructed is the Deputy President, Mr William Ruto.
Those who seek to identify the imbalances in Jubilee in terms of access to contracts or in job allocation refer to the DP, and by extension, the Kalenjin people, being short-changed.
For them, the DP ought to enjoy an elevated status in government that equals that of the President.
The DP is indeed a powerful person, but his power is largely ethnic. As DP, even his ambition is circumscribed.
The Constitution of Kenya subordinates him to the President. Though nominally the leader of URP, the DP was elected on a TNA ticket in the last General Election.
He is the President’s principal assistant, and oversees functions the President assigns him. I am not sure his office has an independent budget.
Mr Ruto’s only claim to power is, therefore, contingent; it is based on the unlikely potential that he will assume the presidency if and when the President is incapable of holding office either due to illness, death or if the National Assembly finds serious reason to impeach him.
The DP is, therefore, a mere plan B. In recent times, he has played that role very well, shielding the presidency to the point of infuriating his ethnic base.
When patience in the face of provocation from his allies did not work, he resorted to whipping them back into line.
The contours of that whipping have been effective mainly as ethnic whipping. Beyond his co-ethnics and Mr Ahmednasir Abdullahi, no one really pays that much attention to the DP.
Though it is not lost to observers that the URP feels isolated and not an effective beneficiary ofnusu mkate, the DP has come in strongly to chastise those who make too much out of this isolation. And I think the DP has learned useful lessons from history.
Andrew Morton writes about the experiences of President Moi during his days as Vice-President. He endured so much but stuck in there for more than a decade often at the expense of his community. The test of Mr Ruto’s resilience rests in enduring this electoral cycle.
But URP is irrelevant to TNA. If the TNA wing of Jubilee Alliance still gives any attention to URP, it is not because they need them. Going into the next General Election, three things illustrate the dispensability of URP.
First, is the weakness of Cord. This coalition is at a very low point and my hope is that it doesn’t get lower than this. Indeed, Cord has the opportunity to ignite a major shift in its gains as a credible opposition and potential ruling alliance. But so far, their attempts have easily faded into an inaudible whimper.
Second, the power of incumbency and the indecisiveness of the IEBC are in themselves major advantages for TNA. Incumbency is always a huge advantage.
Third, when incumbency is rolled together with the greed and lack of principles of our politicians, I cannot rule out the fact that TNA will go out shopping for a new alliance as we get closer to the next general.
The Jubilee Alliance is a single electoral cycle alliance. Show me one politician who will reject TNA’s advances for a 2017 electoral alliance and I will show you 20 who will jump over to take the opportunity, including many in Cord.
A weak IEBC will come in handy. If TNA can carefully work the numbers and generate another alliance, the required 50 per cent plus one vote can easily be massaged by a pliant IEBC. In this scenario, URP is irrelevant.
Godwin Murunga is senior research fellow, Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi. gmurunga@gmail.com
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