Oral East Africa
Kenya’s former president Uhuru Kenyatta’s defeat at the hands of his spurned deputy was complete.
No one captured this humiliating capitulation better than Dennis Galava, one of my former editors who incidentally was sacked on Mr Kenyatta’s behest in 2016 when he penned a bruising editorial against the jubilee administration.
As Mr Galava put it, President Kenyatta’s political career started with rejection and rebellion and ended in rebellion and rejection. Kenyatta the failed Kanu era project; had had a de ja vu moment when his presidential endorsement, opposition leader Raila Odinga was rejected at his hometown and the Central Kenya region at large, home to his ethnic Kikuyu community.
A drunk or political scientist?
Many people, including this writer have often underestimated the economics and political science graduate from Amherst College, assumed to have lived off a silver spoon as the scion of the first Kenyan president and under godfather ship of the second president.
His ally’s including Raila Odinga, and his deputy William Ruto, openly called him a drunkard and easy to manipulate almost taking credit of his successful two terms as President.
But as history evolves and Kenya regrets President William Rutos’ tenure, Mr Kenyatta may go down as a political genius or simply lucky.
He has evolved his Kikuyu community from being isolated in 2007 into an indomitable coalition with rival Kalenjin community and then build a bridge with an olive branch to opposition’s Raila Odinga, that his wife Margaret Kenyatta was invited to Jaramogi Oginga Odinga’s memorial service in Kisumu where his people had been molested and expelled just one and a half a decade ago.
The return of Kenyatta
After a yearlong political hiatus, former president Uhuru Kenyatta made a public appearance on November 19 at a church function in the in the back yard of opposition coalition Azimio 2027 presidential hopeful Kalonzo Musyoka.
The former President who could not even muster a win in his home constituency during the last election was treated as a king maker.
Politicians allied to Mr Musyoka fell over each other to elevate Kenyatta’s achievements during the rare public appearance, as it became clear they wanted an endorsement.
Puffing healthily out of his signature African print shirt while attending a church service in Mwingi County, Kenyatta reveled in political praise for the development projects he built during his time and the validation of rejecting his deputy for the top job.
Kitui Senator Enoch Wambua said that Uhuru's presence at the event was enough endorsement for Kalonzo's presidential bid, adding that Raila Odinga had recently endorsed the former vice president for the top seat.
The former president had come full circle in just one year, from losing to his deputy in the 2022 general elections when President William Ruto floored his preferred candidate Odinga to a visionary leader who seemingly predicted Kenya’s current socio political crisis.
"I have heard all that you have said. Who knows, only God knows," President Kenyatta said caressing the hilt of his double barreled microphone like he was wont to do over the last decade when everyone hung on his words as the country’s number one.
Pyrrhic victory
His exit had been embarrassing, President Kenyatta had lost touch with his Kikuyu community and his endorsement lost in all of his vote-rich Mount Kenya backyard, including Mutomo Polling Station in Gatundu, where he had cast his vote on the morning of August 9.
The rejection cut deep and Mr Kenyatta looked beaten when he announced he would “hand over power smiling because it is constitutional. Aluta continua but I will leave knowing Raila is my leader.”
The new administration rubbed it in with Deputy president Rigathi Gachagua mocking the exiting president who sat pensively powerless during Ruto’s inauguration and then quietly disappeared from public life.
A year into the new government that has unleashed unprecedented tax measures in the middle of a global recession, drought and El Nino, the very same people who had rallied to send Mr Kenyatta to Ichaweri, the family home for retirement, are now regretting, praising his rule and elevating him back to the crest of Kenya’s politics.
Mr Kenyatta now looks like a political genius who predicted his deputy’s incapacity to handle the state machinery and its overwhelming challenges.
While handing over power in his 38-page valedictory speech, Mr Kenyatta had counseled for policy coherence repeating ‘unbroken chain’ 15 times as an appeal for the wisdom of previous governments.
President William Ruto had campaigned against Kenyatta’s policies on security, tax revenues, social safety nets and even operations of Kenya’s most expensive piece of infrastructure, the Standard Gauge Rilway (SGR). Unwinding them and dismantling his administration’s structures, and blaming the previous government for the macroeconomic crisis.
The blame game has become ridiculous after a year of new tax measures and borrowing from International Monetary Fund backed Programme and a tempest of external shocks that has hiked inflation, gutted incomes and made Ruto a very unpopular President with a narrow mandate.
Faced with policy failures, disintegration of social fabric and worsening economy the blame game is being written off as excuses and President Ruto has lost his supposed genius that outwitted the dynasties.
Poisoned chalice
Yet, the truth in part is that Prsident Ruto is right. The young Kenyatta had been Prime and Finance Minister and during President Kibaki’s regime and deeply understood Kenya’s fiscal evolution.
He had directly been involved with the conceptualization of Eurobond post 2008 crisis, its inaugural issue when he became President in 2013 and had been responsible for the aggressive procurement of debt over the last decade.
Kenyatta had then handed his deputy the poisoned chalice and watched him choke over it.
President Ruto who won with just 233,211 votes half of which came from the vote rich Mount Kenya region knows a return of former President Kenyatta could pose a challenge especially at a time when he is trying to arrange a political settlement to opposition Raila Odinga’s popular cost of living protests has shaken the administration.
Just like Edgar Lungu and Imran Khan who have come out of retirement much to the consternation of sitting governments. President Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza regime know Mr Kenyatta can easily rise to the top of Kikuyu politics where he was once regaled as Uthamaki- Gikuyu for Kingship.
Kenya’s politics have often baffled the world as tribal politics and bargains for narrow self-interest have often defined election outcomes under coalition teams where all senior politicians have virtually worked together at a point in time.
The game of musical chairs is about to begin once more.
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