Ruto to Gachagua: You do not carry Mt Kenya votes in your pocket

“I will only submit myself to the voters. You are not God. My knees are for my God; submission is to the subjects, and it is not a must one gets their votes. The people will decide either way… There are no Mt Kenya votes you carry in your pockets,” he said amid moments of discomfort in the audience.

During Saturday’s visit, the President toured Maragua, Kigumo, Kandara and Gatanga constituencies, where he inspected the construction of Ciumbu, Sabasaba, Kangari and Kabati markets, as well as the Kangari-Gichagi-ini-Githumu-Gacharage Road.

He also commissioned a borehole in Kangari town. He closed the tour by handing over milk coolers to Kangari United, Kinyona Legend, Kigoro and Aberdare Dairy Cooperative Societies.

Dr Ruto, who sounded agitated, accused Mr Gachagua of chest-thumping, being anger-driven and carrying malice in the political arena.

“He wants to decide what music to listen to. They want to choose for us the church we attend, the leaders to elect. They want me to go and be their house help, if not their wife, to cook and wash dishes for him… Forget it, I will never,” he said.

Also Read: Ruto to Mt Kenya - I kept my promise, give me your votes

He said he finds it hard to engage with “an opposition that has no agenda, plan, focus and brain,” adding that, “I have strived to achieve my 2022 promise to hustlers and the vision of the bottom-up economic model.”

Dr Ruto said the only hard work his opposition has unleashed is nicknaming him ‘Kasongo’ and insulting him with demeaning statements.

But Mr Gachagua, speaking on MO Radio in Mombasa County, said the President’s fury is characteristic of a politically cornered leader.

“The President is stuck in his own deceit. I warned him not to disturb the Mountain. He ignored and trusted in his own little understanding of the Mountain. Let him drown in his own cheek. We are nearly there when he will take stock of his folly,” he said.

He said President Ruto won Mt Kenya in 2022 through the Bible and ground visits but now wants the same support for 2027 through insults and handouts.

Mr Gachagua has since launched a campaign in Mt Kenya dubbed “Fagia wasaliti” (sweep traitors) to ensure those aligned with President Ruto do not win any Mt Kenya seat in the next General Election.

Mr Gachagua has vowed to ensure that President Ruto does not get more than five percent of votes cast in Mt Kenya—compared to the 87 percent Dr Ruto garnered in the 2022 General Election.

In what might stir President Ruto’s ongoing negotiations with one faction of the Orange Democratic Party, Dr Ruto appeared to endorse his Deputy, Prof Kithure Kindiki, for the running mate slot ahead of the next General Election.

Also Read: Battle for Mt Kenya - Ruto camp unveils plan to cut down Gachagua influence

The Dr Oburu Odinga-led ODM wing has declared that the running mate slot is an irreducible minimum in determining whether its members will support President Ruto’s re-election.

The President said Prof Kindiki is diligent, calm and understands how to organise political narratives.

Lands Cabinet Secretary Alice Wahome said, “We will support President Ruto’s re-election if and when Prof Kindiki is on the ticket.”

Prof Kindiki urged Mt Kenya voters to shun political anger and embrace development-oriented mindsets when making political decisions.

“Mt Kenya has former President Mwai Kibaki as the pacesetter. He proved to us that you can play politics that unites all under a development agenda,” he said.

Prof Kindiki said 2027 belongs to God and that at the right moment, “heavens will pronounce themselves and voters will decide.”

National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wa lamented that Mr Gachagua has redefined Mt Kenya politics with what he termed as an aura of intolerance.

“If you do not see things his way, you are a traitor. If you express independence of mind, you are an enemy. Never at any other political moment in Mt Kenya have we heard this kind of insults, intimidation and propaganda. But we will neutralise his bravado. We will not kneel before him,” he said.

Also Read: Why Ruto is not giving up on Mt Kenya despite hostility

President Ruto’s visit on Friday was marred by tensions, with CS Wahome being heckled after she said in Murang’a town that Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro was still friends with the government.

She urged Mr Nyoro “to consider supporting the government so that it can implement the many opinions he issues about the economy.”

Hundreds of youths later held a rally in the town where they burnt government campaign materials and staged a mock burial for the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) while chanting opposition slogans.

At Makenji area in Gatanga Constituency, the audience appeared agitated when Mr Ichung’wa criticised Mr Gachagua.

Mr Ichung’wa had told Governor Irungu Kang’ata “not to submit to that tribal and divisive man who is issuing threats of fielding a candidate against you unless you kneel before him.”

Mr Ichung’wa immediately cut off his speech when dissenting voices grew louder, as President Ruto also signalled him to conclude.

In response to the tour, Murang’a Senator Joe Nyutu accused the President of “engaging in bar talk instead of addressing unemployment, fuel crisis making the cost of living unbearable, Social Health Authority’s Sh200 million debt to Murang’a County now collapsing healthcare, and the use of goons as an extension of his government’s security.”

He accused the President of “cheapening Murang’a’s national standing by using taxpayers’ money to import insults from State House against opposition leaders.”

Mr Nyutu added that “Mt Kenya is the only region outside Rift Valley that wholly believed in his 2022 presidential bid, but once you rode on our backs to secure a narrow win, you paid us with betrayal and are now making it worse by engaging in unpresidential talk against us.”

He wondered, “What went wrong for Gachagua, whom you impeached as your Deputy hoping to make him irrelevant in two weeks?”

He posed: “Why is an impeached man giving a whole president and his government all this agitation two years later? He is roaming all over, giving promises you cannot track and roadside budgets you cannot authenticate or audit.”

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