Less than two years into President William Ruto’s first term — and even before he clinches his second term on August 10, 2027 — Mount Kenya region is already rumbling over the 2032 succession. One salient concept driving the Ruto succession rumble in the mountain region is ‘the politics of sympathy’.
Although the idea of sympathy has a pride of place in moral philosophy — traced to Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) — in Kenya, as elsewhere, it has evolved as an ‘irrational’, ‘immature’ and crude “politics of sentiment” rather than the “politics of reason”.
It is opportunistically used by the elite as a strategy to win power at all costs by playing on the grievances, misfortunes, fear and uncertainty of communities. The politics of sympathy play on prejudices and ethnic grievances to produce a ‘victim’ who feels hurt, marginalised, robbed, betrayed or made to suffer. Both sympathy and victim-hood have often led to sentimental collective choices and action.
In Mt Kenya, the sentimental rhetoric of sympathy rests on the premise of ‘shared pains’ across generations. More recently, the politics of sympathy burst into Kenya’s political landscape upon the country’s return to multi-party politics. It thrived on the intense politicisation of ethnic identities that created the binary of ‘victims’ and ‘villains’ as the anvil upon which political coalitions are forged.
Historically, the power of sympathy has been the cornerstone of Mt Kenya politics. It shaped the region’s choices of presidents. During the May 18-26, 1963 general elections, which ushered Kenya to independence, the ‘villain’ was the British coloniser. Jomo Kenyatta (1889-1978) was the ‘victim’ of colonialism and hero of liberation.
As a result, Mt Kenya overwhelmingly elected KANU and “Mzee” at almost 75 years. As Prof. Ali Mazrui once quipped, at independence, Kenya was Africa’s youngest nation with Africa’s oldest president. Soon, age become a factor: “The KANU cockerel is too old to crow,” which Kenyatta refuted with a humorous rhetoric and risqué.
Daniel arap Moi also rose to power in 1978 riding on the power of sympathy. He was the victim of the Mt Kenya/’Kiambu mafia’ in the intrigues and power tussles in the Kenyatta succession. Moi’s story is a perfect narrative of the triumph of victimhood and sympathy, eloquently told by Joseph Karīmi & Philip Ochieng' in their best-selling book, The Kenyatta Succession (1980).
Largely attributed to a long and shared hatred of the tyrannical KANU regime, Mwai Kibaki’s electoral victory in 2002 is an exception to the sentimental politics of sympathy. However, Kibaki’s near-fatal road accident at Machakos on December 3, 2002, which nearly killed his dream of becoming president, drew serious sympathy. His re-election in December 2007 was also propelled by the power of sympathy in Mt Kenya fostered by the fear and uncertainty around the opposition’s “one-against-41” campaign narrative.
Undoubtedly, the International Criminal Court’s foray into Kenya triggered intense emotions of sympathy and victimhood, which determined the winners and losers in the March 4, 2013 presidential contest.
Indictment of the ‘Hague Six’ by the Court coupled with “Choices have consequences” rhetoric as well as a conspiracy theory that the court was used to decapitate Raila Odinga’s challengers and whipped sympathy around the Uhuru Kenyatta-William Ruto presidential bid, enabling the duo to win power.
Again, politic of sympathy with the poor (‘hustlers’), betrayal and victimisation by the ‘dynasties’ swept Ruto to power in August 2022.
The road to the 2027 elections is also heavily mined with sentimental politics. The gloves are off. The Ruto-Gachagua tiff is now public knowledge. The gospel tune, ‘Kama Mbaya Mbaya’ (‘If it’s bad, so be it’), by Tanzanian singer, Rose Mhando, has become a war cry in the 2032 succession politics in Mt Kenya.
On May 19, 2024, Nyeri Governor, Mutahi Kahiga, declared that: “We will not allow you to humiliate our son, (Deputy President Rigathi) Gachagua…Kama Mbaya, Mbaya”.
One fiery preacher has prophesied in social media of a new ‘Rigathi sympathy wave’ “gathering from the Mountain might sweep those fighting him”. This has hoisted Gachagua as the new icon of victimhood in Mt Kenya. Three discernible trends are fuelling the new sentimental politics of sympathy in Mt Kenya.
First, is Gachagua’s efforts to win endorsement of the powerful Kenyatta family as heir to Uhuru and the region’s supremo. On March 25, 2024, he extended an Olive branch to the family, apologising to Mama Ngina Kenyatta for insults and ‘disrespectful behaviour’ during the 2022 general election.
Second, the battle for supremacy in Mt Kenya is also playing on the sentimental history of the Mau Mau freedom struggle. In June 2023, Raila dared Gachagua to prove he was truly a “son of Mau Mau”— a badge he brandishes to lay moral claim to Mt Kenya leadership. The answer came in his Wikipedia account: “His parents were Mau Mau freedom fighters in Mt. Kenya Forest where his father serviced guns for the Mau Mau while his mother was a food and ammunition courier for the fighters.”
Third, Gachagua has become assertive, claiming the mantle of Mt Kenya kingpin, calling for the unity of the Mountain around him as the ‘senior-most’ leader. Challenging him is now cast as dividing the region.
The new wave is a real threat to genuine efforts to broker an inclusive change of guard in the still unfinished Uhuru succession. Victimhood is eclipsing reason, community interests and nationalism and denying the region a fair chance of to arrive at a credible alternative leadership to steer the region through the turbulent 21st century.
The gameplan is to unite the vote-rich region around the rhetoric of betrayal, besiegement, marginalisation and economic injustice. In this context, Gachagua is championing the “one man, one shilling, one vote” mantra advocated by the failed Bridging Bridges Initiative in the run-up to the 2022 elections.
Ahead of 2027, the endgame is to scramble and reorganise UDA politics by seizing control of Mt Kenya and eventually present President Ruto with a fait accompli to share power with Gachagua the way he did with Uhuru. But the politics of sympathy and victimhood can degenerate into “Us-versus-Them’ ethnic populism and divide the fragile nation.
Prof. Peter Kagwanja is former Government Adviser and currently the Chief Executive at the Africa Policy Institute and Adjunct Professor at the University of Nairobi and the National Defence University (Kenya).
