Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth,” said Mike Tyson. This has echoes in the recent Mbeere North by-election. Few expected the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) to win this classic Goliath-David duel, which occurred against a strong anti-Ruto wave in Mount Kenya.
The ruling party’s Leonard Wamuthende clinched a razor-thin victory, garnering 15,802 votes against the Democratic Party’s Newton Kariuki, who won 15,308 votes.
The victory has introduced doubts about the ability of the “One-term Movement” to send Ruto home in 2027. While the by-election was massively flawed, it marked the triumph of strategy over emotive regional and identity politics, with far-reaching implications for the 2027 polls. Kenya’s opposition has to change course, go back to the drawing board and take a hard relook at their strategy.
Mbeere has been rightly described as a “little constituency with a big say.” With just 55,124 registered voters (2022), it is the scene of the most titanic battles in the run-up to 2027. The Mbeere ethnic group is also a case of small numbers, big power. With 195,250 people, about 0.7 per cent of the population of Kiambu County, from 1958 the Mbeere elite— Jeremiah Nyagah to Justin Muturi and Geoffrey Ruku—have occupied national leadership positions, including Speaker of the National Assembly.
Mbeere is the testing ground for Ruto’s 2027 re-election strategy in Mount Kenya. In the by-elections, his strategy unfolded like a ‘dirty version’ of Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Know yourself, and victory is yours. Aware of his vulnerability in Mount Kenya politics, Ruto stayed out of the Mbeere campaign trails. Instead, he heavily funded a localised campaign to neutralise the Gachagua factor and win.
UDA teams fueled the Mt Kenya East against Mt Kenya West politics as the wedge issue to divide and win in Mbeere. This strategy forged the unity of the Embu (Cecil Mbarire), Mbeere (Geoffrey Ruku) and Meru (Deputy President Kindiki ) to consolidate the Mount Kenya East team, ready for 2027.
The Gachagua-led Mt West is depicted as the enemy. “What’s wrong with you, Ameru? Are you bewitched? This is the first time you have a Deputy President, and you are reluctant to stand by him,” posed a senior Meru leader rhetorically, a curtain-raiser for 2027.
Second, within Mbeere, UDA strategists ruthlessly whipped and deployed clan politics as a wedge issue to divide the voters and win the polls. Notably, the Mbeere people are traditionally organised around two root clans, the Mururi or Thagana (herders) and the Ndamata or Irumbi (tillers). Since the rise of multi-party politics in 1992, the elite have polarised electoral politics along the Mbeere clans. Ruku supported his fellow clansman, Leonard Wamuthende, as his successor. Muturi gave Newton Kariuki (Ndamata) the Democratic Party (DP) ticket. He moved to forge a new 2027 political alliance with former Embu senator Lenny Kivuti (Mururi) to neutralise clan politics.
The two Mbeere clans became armour-plated war formations. UDA took on the Mururi identity. Ahead of the election, Mururi clan elites were appointed to senior positions in the Broad-based government.
This sparked a fierce social media attack on Ruku for favouring the Mururi, effectively polarising the two clans along the Muturi-Ruku, Irumbi-Thagana divide.
The Mururi elite trained their guns on Kivuti, accusing him of betraying his clan by supporting a Ndamata candidate. Kivuti was forced to retreat to protect his 2027 ambitions in Embu County. After victory, Ruku is the man after the mantle of Mururi clan likely to eclipse Kivuti. Ruto has used the by-election to get his 2027 ducks in a row.
Three, Ruto provide a safe passage to Moses Kuria’s Chama Cha Kazi, an affiliate of Kenya Kwanza, strategically allowing it to field a candidate in Mbeere North to compete with its own candidate. Kuria gave CCK ticket to Duncan Mbui, a Ndamata and self-made MCA who won the 2022 election as an Independent candidate in the populous Evurore ward, where Justin Muturi’s Irumbi clan constitutes over 70 per cent of the voters. “Mbui is just paving the way for Wamathende”, said one social media critic. In the end, Mbui won 2,480 votes, effectively dividing the Ndamata vote.
To all intents and purposes, Kuria was the winner of the Mbeere North by-election. Fourthly, there are claims galore of violence, voter bribery and pre-marked ballot papers as the Government’s rigging. But the Government side also benefited from a clear lack of strategy, unity of purpose and manifest disregard for democratic tenets in opposition nominations.
The Mbeere by-election has proved that party nominations continue to be the weakest link in Kenya’s democracy. Arguably, a strategy-led search for the opposition’s flag-bearer for Mbeere North would have given the opposition ticket to Mbui and persuaded Karish to support him to unify the Mururi clan.
Instead, Gachagua and Muturi agreed on Karish as Opposition candidate as part of a zoning policy likely to kill political democracy and the ambitions of aspirants, and partly contributed to the loss of the Mbeere North seat. Gachagua dropped Mbui as DCP candidate as part of a broader strategy to ensure the opposition presents a single candidate in 2027 to challenge President William Ruto. Mbui claimed that Gachagua dropped him, shifted his support to DP’s Newton Karish without informing him of coalition talks and decision, despite earlier urging him to remain active in the campaigns.
Personalised party decisions
With the by-election highly localised, the Gachagua factor did not help the opposition’s campaign. Silently, the entire Embu County leadership—Mbarire, Kivuti, Ruku, and even Muturi—and Meru County were not impressed with Nyeri claiming leadership of the campaign. Disenchanted by the electoral outcomes in Mbere North, other parties may decide to break ranks with Embu allies and field their own candidates for seats.
Lack of strategy and personalised party decisions have delivered a foothold to Ruto and his UDA party in Mount Kenya. Mbeere North heads for two by-elections to fill two MCA seats which fell vacant after Kariuki (Maminji Ward) and Mbui (Evurore Ward) resigned to contest the just concluded by-election. The opposition should take to heart the hard lessons learnt from the last election. Moreover, Mbeere North could also go to a repeat election if petitioners challenging the election of Wa Muthende in the Embu High Court win. But only strategy and democratic nominations will deliver victory.
Professor Peter Kagwanja is former Government Advisor and currently President & Chief Executive, Africa Policy Institute (API), and Adjunct scholar at the University of Nairobi and the National Defence University (Kenya).
