In Kenya’s political conversations, there is consensus that the 1982 attempted coup was what turned President Daniel arap Moi into a paranoid, rabid dictator, who would go on to create a police state and to crack down on democracy and basic freedoms. This school of thought avers that coming so close to losing power drove Moi into consolidating it even more, as well as into seeing traitors, enemies and saboteurs everywhere.
Moi immediately entered self-preservation mode. Whereas he had taken power in 1978 as a soft spoken, lamb of a leader, seeking to merely follow Jomo Kenyatta’s 'Nyayo', he realised that pure populism and the unending attempts to be friendly to Kenyatta’s people wouldn’t help him stay in power, without forceful assertion of his own will and presidency. He lasted two more decades in office after this.
Fast forward to June this year, when a massive wave of young protestors, seeking to not only stop the passing of the Finance Bill, 2024 by the National Assembly, but to also remove President Ruto from office, actually breached Parliament and set sections of it on fire. It was the most audacious challenge to a sitting regime since the 1982 coup. If the young Kenyans, in such large numbers, had maintained that momentum a few more days past June 25, I suspect the regime would have fallen.
President Ruto responded to the strong show of force by the population by withdrawing the Bill and then sacking nearly the entire Cabinet. It didn’t quite seem to assuage the so-called Gen Z protestors, who, basking in their newfound power and national numbers, cranked up their demand that the President resigns. On Tuesday this week, they were out in numbers again, bringing business to a halt in most Kenyan urban centres and major highways.
While dismissing his Cabinet on July 11, the head of state hinted at the formation of a new broad-based government, across the political divide. Two days before this, while assenting to the IEBC (Amendment) Bill at KICC, and flanked by ODM chief Raila Odinga, Ruto announced the beginning of national dialogue, which Raila promptly supported. It then became increasingly clear that the Azimio leader would play some role in the anticipated government of national unity.
However, anyone who has followed Ruto’s political journey will know by now that he is a vindictive, temperamental politician, who keeps grudges and personalises power to the extreme. In fact, in my view, part of the reason that his fired Cabinet was ineffective was his continued micromanagement of the dockets by issuing roadside policy and operational statements. This background suggests that even though he is perceived to be down now, Ruto is seething with rage at this challenge, and like Moi after 1982, his immediate instinct would naturally be to ride out this crisis, then launch the 'dictatorship chapter'.
I submit that the President is incapable of any Road to Damascus moment. His modus operandi is to bulldoze everything to his satisfaction. Immediately after winning the 2022 election, and even before he was sworn-in, he went about trying to dismantle the Azimio parliamentary numbers, by getting smaller member parties of the Raila coalition. The objective: to force the parties to switch sides to shore up his own Kenya Kwanza parliamentary strength.
Subsequent to that, the ruling coalition then turned their parliamentary group meetings into robot-preps for pushing through their bills and motions, however unpopular with the people. This is an important point to note, because the captured Parliament, having been perceived to be a mere appendage of the Executive, formed a key part of the Gen Z complaints.
Besides this, it is naïve to imagine that the entire Cabinet can be perceived to be incompetent and out of touch with the masses, but the “head of the fish”, the President, is free from this rot. Ruto is a man who values loyalty over competence, and these people that he fired are his true friends, with whom he feels comfortable, no matter what their next stations in life will be.
He may appoint a convenient PR Cabinet to show some sort of progress, but I guarantee you that first, he will micromanage them by curtailing their freedom to work, but even worse, will likely keep his true friends in the ministries’ technocrat roles running rings around the new Cabinet members.
For any new coalition partners, I believe the challenges go beyond just a new Cabinet. For instance, the behaviour of the police during the demonstrations in the past two months show large-scale lack of professionalism and snippets of militia habits. If a government of national unity takes shape without reforming the police force, how much worse will it be around election time?
At any rate, how would a GNU tame the voting-robot nature of ruling coalition politicians, enough to chart a path sustainable to peace and prosperity, and to actually make the GNU relevant, at least in the three years to the next elections?
I have another theory around Ruto’s supposed capitulation to the protests and planned formation of a GNU. The Kibaki and Uhuru regimes, having taken up the last 20years, have basically given the central Kenya money and security networks a solid head start in the sustenance of power.
While the President spars with his deputy Rigathi Gachagua, which in Kenya’s perennial political divisions can be equated as a Kalenjin-Kikuyu regime fallout, he holds the weaker end of the stick. The last time a Kalenjin was President was in 2002. Now the money and security apparatus folks who oil the wheels of power are mostly Kikuyu, and if he were to fall, it is easy to see how this would go.
As I stated last week, it is for this reason that many parts of Kenya may not mind Ruto and may even want him to succeed as President. But he already sits lonely atop the pile of public perception as a perennial liar, whose word may not count for much even in times of crisis like this. Proposed coalition partners would do well to demand the ministries that are pro-people in the nature of work, as well as influential enough to determine the destiny of the country’s economic and political realm, like treasury, roads and agriculture. But will the President give out these?
Ruto faces re-election in 2027, and quite honestly, will not countenance the idea of star performers, especially from the opposition, joining his Cabinet and turning out to be the saviours of his sinking ship. A coalition government or GNU is easier crafted in partnership with a President in his last term.
Moi waited until 2000, two years to the end of his reign, to bring in Raila’s NDP wing in a merger and Cabinet arrangement. Even the no-posts-offered handshake between Uhuru and Raila in 2018 only took place in Uhuru’s final term. I am therefore persuaded that any GNU posts that Ruto extends to 'outsiders' will not be allowed to make the requisite impact.
I, therefore, hold that the proposed GNU, if it comes to pass, will be a terrible idea because it will be fraught with dishonesty and lack of real goodwill. In short, it will be a monumental failure. Anyone packing up to join the Ruto regime must therefore “pack at his own risk”.
Political commentator