President William Ruto has given the opposition fertile ground to grow and make him a one-term president. However, this is not something the opposition should take for granted, and start measuring drapes for their government offices as many in Azimio did in 2022 only to get a rude shock that their assumption was only a pipe dream.
If there was one thing Ruto proved in 2022, it is that he is not your conventional Kenyan politician, at least in how to scheme and get into power.
If misleading, embellishing, confusing, and lying to voters is a staple among politicians, Ruto took this to another level, unlike anything we have ever seen in the Republic of Kenya. Globally, Ruto will be in the same league among the worst of them led by the twice-impeached and now facing criminal charges, former President Donald Trump.
Before having palpitations over that comparison, take solace in the fact one thing that distinguishes the President from Trump and others who rode populism driven by over promising, telling lies and half-truths at best is that unlike Trump and the like, Ruto does have a “Doctor of Philosophy degree in Plant Ecology”.
It is a degree that means absolutely nothing to the average Kenyan out there struggling to make ends meet, if at all. The degree may mean nothing, even to the holder as no one seriously expects Ruto to someday set up shop as an ecologist studying the distribution of plants, but the man does have a level of street-smarts one could have only learned from the professor of politics himself — and Ruto did.
This was unmistakably what Ruto relied on to outwit and outsmart everyone ranged against him to end up in State House as our fifth president.
As Ruto has found out, however, getting to the State House as president is one thing, but staying there beyond one term is quite a different matter altogether. Past presidents in Africa and all countries, except for those in the West have only returned to office for a second term after stealing elections.
There are exceptions, but you would be hard put to find one. There’s doubt what is in Ruto and Kenya Kwanza’s minds as they see the carpet beneath them being yanked by discontent and even hostility from gullible voters whom they assumed they had in the bag for both 2022 and 2027.
Can Ruto turn things around and regain the aura and bravado with which he rode to State House? Of course, he can; the question is, will he? The answer to that question is not amenable to a short essay like this, but you can take it to the bank that if the opposition is united behind one candidate, there is nothing Ruto can do between now and 2027 to avoid being trounced at the polls.
This begs the even more important question, and that is, will the opposition be united behind one candidate? We have been on this road before. When the country clamoured for multi-partyism back in the 90s, the professor of politics initially resisted the idea, but then it dawned on him that allowing multiple parties would splinter the country into tribal cocoons and make it easy for him to reign forever.
Using a combination of a badly divided opposition and the power of incumbency, President Daniel Moi reigned for 24 years, only to have his preferred successor Uhuru Kenyatta soundly rejected in 2002.
Ruto proved the power of incumbency is only as good as the glue that holds it together; if that power is not tightly woven and held together, its fissures can lead to gaping holes through which the enemy can enter and destroy.
The opposition was successful in thwarting Moi’s attempt to force on everyone someone they were not ready for in 2002 because the opposition was united. When ODM leader Raila Odinga said Kibaki Tosha, he sealed the deal for uniting the opposition and the rest is history.
Notwithstanding Ruto’s failures, it will take that level of unity in the opposition to make Ruto a one-term president. A divided opposition will do the exact opposite and see Ruto easily getting sworn in for a second term.