Editor’s note: Pancras Muthee from Meru explains why the appointment of Uhuru Kenyatta’s men to the cabinet won’t help him regain Mt Kenya vote.
President William Ruto must come to terms with the fact that Mt Kenya vote has slipped from his grip. He must also understand it is his mistakes that culminated in his current predicament.
Ruto must know appointing former CS Mutahi Kagwe, William Kabogo, and Lee Kinyanjui won’t help him regain his grip on Mt Kenya vote.
The president on Thursday appointed former Kiambu governor William Kabogo as ICT CS.
Former Health CS Mutahi Kagwe has been appointed as Agriculture CS.
In the same vein, Ruto nominated former Nakuru governor Lee Kinyanjui to the Ministry of Trade and Investments.
All the above CS appointees are former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s men. Notably, the appointment of the three came weeks after Ruto met Uhuru at the latter’s Ichaweri home.
However, the reaction so far points to the fact it will be hard for William Ruto to be accepted back in Mt Kenya. And here are some of the reasons.
1. Mt. Kenya region hates betrayal, and Uhuru and Ruto embody just that. It has now emerged that the two worked together to kick out DP Rigathi Gachagua from government.
2. Ruto’s self-absorption has driven him to think he can choose leaders for the Mt Kenya’s GEMA community. This won’t work. The fact that he has come out bragging about how he planned Gachagua’s ouster shows the president’s arrogance.
3. The talk on the ground is that Ruto is trying to woo the GEMA community back after it dawned on him that the western Kenya vote bloc, including Luo Nyanza, may not be as dependable as he earlier thought.
4. While Mt Kenya voted overwhelmingly for Ruto, they have never forgotten about his involvement in the 2007 post-election violence. At the time, Ruto was in ODM, and he was notoriously mentioned as a key planner of the violence that displaced hundreds of thousands.
5. The President’s recent insults and mocking of Mt Kenya voters, especially when on tour of Nyanza, rekindled the “40-versus-1” ODM’s 2007 mantra that culminated in the Post-Election Violence (PEV) with the GEMA community as the target.
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6. Recently the President and his henchmen have been busy deploying the ‘divide and rule’ tactic in Mt Kenya region. Even the appointment of Kagwe and Kabogo is part of the larger scheme to divide the region’s votes.
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