Why MPs turned their guns on Ruto-Raila instead of Gachagua

There was a 'conclave' at Karen attended by some Members of Parliament from Raila Odinga’s ODM and William Ruto’s UDA. The meeting was partly meant to sideline Rigathi Gachagua’s ability to grab media headlines. But it turned into a national spectacle in which MPs unexpectedly turned against Raila and Ruto.

Although Ruto defeated Raila in 2022, the two became bosom buddies at the expense of Gachagua, the former deputy president. Initially, Gachagua ignored warnings that Raila and Ruto would gang up against him as he struggled to assert himself as the leader of the mountain. He talked about setting traps to stop Raila from accessing State House. As Gachagua’s star fizzled in UDA, Raila’s star shone in Ruto’s government.

Raila is a master tactician in political recovery. He loses elections, makes some noise, and then cuts profitable deals with the winner. After the 1997 election, Raila abandoned the Opposition to join forces with President Daniel arap Moi in 1998 and had two objectives: to undermine Mwai Kibaki and to entrench himself in Kanu. He even took Joseph Kamotho’s Kanu Secretary General job. He left Kanu in 2002 because Moi anointed Uhuru Kenyatta as his successor. Thereafter, Raila displayed his political genius by jumping to the winning Kibaki side and made it appear as if he was the one who elected Kibaki.

Raila perfected the art of running, losing, and winning through post-election activities. Despite having the support of the Conceptual West in 2007, Raila lost to Kibaki and the British immediately called for power sharing. Kofi Annan produced the  2008 nusu mkate government, which made Raila prime minister. Kibaki and Raila produced the 2010 Constitution that was to Raila’s liking.

With his potential opponents indicted by the International Criminal Court, Raila appeared poised to win the 2013 presidential election, only to be disappointed when the voters rejected imperialism by electing Uhuru and Ruto (UhuRuto) instead of him.

In 2017, Raila lost twice to the UhuRuto anti-imperialist team. He still managed to work his way into the Uhuru government in 2018 at the expense of DP Ruto. After losing the 2022 election to Ruto, he ingratiated himself to the Ruto government by targeting Gachagua for removal from office. The two, Raila and Ruto, exploited the 2024 Gen Z uprising to dislodge Gachagua from the DP position.

After the Gen Z shocked Raila and Ruto out of their political comfort zones, the two designed counter-uprising strategies for penetrating, fragmenting, and discrediting the youth. In turning against the Gen Zs, Raila reportedly told his ODM followers, that he wanted to stop Gachagua from becoming president if Ruto left.

Removing Gachagua, therefore, became the Raila-Ruto obsession. Subsequently, the pockets of the MPs were reportedly filled with good Kenyan money in order to stimulate their enthusiasm for impeaching Gachagua. Later, some of them boasted and thanked Ruto for instructing them to remove 'Ule Mkabila'.

The problem for both Ruto and Raila was that Gachagua, despite being impeached, refused to fade into political oblivion. Instead, because his impeachment had little merit, Gachagua came to symbolise public discontent over the Raila-Ruto ‘broad-based’ government. He popularised such new slogans as ‘wantam’ and ‘cousins’, and kept ‘spilling’ the beans over gross violation of the Constitution by the executive and the Parliament. He also talked about high level corruption and youth killings. Gachagua’s popularity appears to have disconcerted Ruto and Raila so much that they called the ‘conclave’ for elected members of ODM and UDA in order to regain political bearings.

Both Raila and Ruto went to the meeting ready to annoy and force their followers into defiance. Resenting Raila’s call to scrap the Constituency Development Fund, the MPs were angry with Ruto and branded the two ‘corrupt’. Ruto flew to Japan, the ODM-UDA conclave collapsed, and anxiety for Gachagua’s impact increased. A game is being played.