Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s ‘villager politics’ is a double-edged sword that could backfire on him in case of his future political ambitions, political analysts and commentators now say.
Though seen as following the script of his boss, President William Ruto , who rallied ‘hustlers’, and made them the core of his 2022 presidential campaign, Mr Gachagua’s is seen by his critics as isolationist, and by his supporters as the genius of politics; Starting from the bottom.
With a huge Mt Kenya vote basket and a national office to exercise his politics, being the second in command meant Mr Gachagua became a heartbeat away from ultimate power.
"But right from the word go, and this is a key reason I have not been considering him to be worth friendship, he started speaking of the government of shareholders and such things...That regionalism has been his weakest point," says Nairobi senator Edwin Sifuna.
Mr Sifuna said, "until that time Mr Gachagua will embrace national values and pursuits...that will be the turning point in his politics".
Mr Gachagua was picked by Dr Ruto to be his running mate for the August 2022 General Election even before he had completed his first term as Mathira MP.
"In my long administrative career that has seen me serve all pre-independent governments in Kenya till 2020, I had not expected Gachagua to rise that abruptly. Give it to him, that was smart working on his part," says former Nairobi administrator, Mr Joseph Kaguthi.
Mr Kaguthi told Nation.Africa that "Gachagua rolled into office carrying the hope of Mt Kenya and when he was tasked to oversee the rejuvenation of coffee, tea and dairy sectors, optimism for economic freedom dawning in the mountain became real".
In the recent developments, culminating in the dissolution of President Ruto’s inaugural Cabinet, Mr Gachagua is also reported to have had a heart-to-heart talk with his boss, where he expressed his disappointment in his public expression of the happenings within the Kenya Kwanza administration.
“The boss told the DP that he had stabbed him in the back. He said when he needed him, he was busy calling out the ills of the leaders instead of finding a way to discuss the issues,” revealed a top Kenya Kwanza official within the presidency privy to the meeting the President held with the DP at the last Cabinet meeting, now dubbed ‘the last super’.
The President’s concerns also touched on the DP’s move to capitalise on the ‘village’ slogan after National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah referred to his actions in consolidating the Mountain and pushing for one man, one shillings, one vote.
Kikuyu Council of Elders patron Mr Kung'u Muigai says "Gachagua's glorious moment to bag the deputy presidency mostly relied on his commitment to protect the 1967 oath that founding father of the Nation Mzee Jomo Kenyatta administered on the community never to enter into political alliances with certain formations".
He says graduation from a regional hope to a national darling is the vertex that is yet to really work out for Mr Gachagua.
He says "Mr Gachagua’s choice of safeguarding the late Kenyatta's wish that was being betrayed by his own son (Mr Uhuru Kenyatta) by attempting to have the region endorse Mr Raila Odinga has served to endear him to his people, leading to Dr William Ruto reaping big from the region in the August 9, 2022 vote." Mr Muigai said Gachagua’s opposition to a handshake between President Ruto and Mr Odinga had kept him in good stead in the Mountain, until the national angle of his office oath was brought to the fore.
Mr Kaguthi fears that Mr Gachagua imparted too much love for the mountain and too much gusto in serving it to a point he forgot, or neglected, his broader national calling.
Being the principal assistant to the President who is the symbol of national unity, it was a matter of time before DP Gachagua's mode of regional politics clashed with the projections of his boss, leading him to the current crisis where it is apparent that they have fallen out.
Political analyst Prof Ngugi Njoroge, describes Gachagua evolution from a first-term MP to Deputy President as a cross whose weight troubled the former junior District Officer in the Kanu regime.
"From the darling of the mountain, he morphed into a national punching bag over too much regionalism and conflict-laden proclamations before he struck a new note that appears to target becoming Mt Kenya king at the expense of his constitutionally defined national mandate," he said.
Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture Technology don Charles Mwangi said "it is now clear that given two options between leading Kenya or the Mountain, Gachagua most likely will pick the mountain".
This is a notion Mr Gachagua has had of late trying to fight, while in Murang'a county on June 29, 2024, saying "my primary interest as a villager of the Mountain is to unite my own people so that we can move together to the national platform to unite Kenyans".
He said "Everyone has where he comes from, I for instance come from the Mountain and we cannot talk of a nation before we have exhausted the debate about our families, villages, counties...up to uniting the nation".
Former Gatanga MP Nduati Ngugi said, “Mr Gachagua’s ‘I am a villager’ moniker being progressed in the Mountain has also ignited a fire of pride among Mt Kenya natives but created a wedge with president's allies in the same region.” Mr Ngugi believes that the villager moniker if well managed might give Gachagua the advantage of another wave of political clarion call, more powerful than the 2022 Hustler tides "but I am not sure whether it will do him good in the national arena where tribeless politics are shaping out" He added that “Gachagua’s move to seek forgiveness from the Kenyatta family was genius and helped win over hearts to his side since in our community the moment you say sorry hostilities sublimate but again, it was better if he reconciled with someone like Raila Odinga since that aspect is more rewarding in politics”.
Democratic Congress' national youth leader, Ms Gladys Njoroge, said Mr Gachagua has suffered national stage fright and is obsessed with creating village-based alliances.
"Gachagua has become a political capitalist who has realised that his only route to relevance is tribal support. That is why he is more obsessed with making peace with camps like that of former president Uhuru Kenyatta. He is up to creating a notion that other communities have ganged up against "us" as a sympathy vote-hunting ploy," she said.
Ms Njoroge feared that “as his Mountain rating goes up, it is not the same case nationally and that scenario might present him with a problem as 2027 and 2032 equations start founding themselves”. She feels that “Mr Gachagua fortunes are only rising in Mt Kenya region and can only serve him better in taking the region into opposition in 2027 or into another alliance to kick out his boss President Ruto from office”. Nyeri governor, Mr Mutahi Kahiga, says “there was nothing wrong with Mr Gachagua in the first place, it is only that he was set up by his boss to look bad”. Mr Kahiga says Gachagua was programmed to pick quarrels with the national front.
"They made him castigate Mr Kenyatta, and Odinga and also speak about shareholding government. The same people who set him up turned against him and started dismissing him as primitive as well as sponsoring his isolation," Mr Kahiga told Nation.Africa .
He said that “it is now that we are learning that we might be following a road to a possible political deathtrap if we are not careful in the way we demand basic respects for our regional leader who is Gachagua and how we redefine our political character for the future".
Buuri MP Rindikiri Murwithania said "the war on alcoholism that Gachagua started in the Mt Kenya region has also endeared him immensely to locals but unfortunately it is being used against him”.
Kajiado North MP Onesmus Ngogoyo said "we will not hate Gachagua who is only being fought for insisting on My Kenya unity, justice in resource and opportunity allocation as well as demanding that we be truthful in the way we govern and relate".
He said "those of us who subscribe to traditional respects for pecking order will tell you that we must make him a local hero before we can take him to the world".
