President-elect William Ruto ’s political foot soldiers yesterday stormed former President Daniel Moi’s Rongai backyard, urging voters to help end the Moi dynasty by rejecting his son who is defending his parliamentary seat.
Led by Deputy President-elect Rigathi Gachagua , the Kenya Kwanza Alliance brigade held a series of rallies in Rongai, the home of the former president, and launched an all-out war against Mr Raymond Moi, the only Moi scion still holding an elective seat.
Moi, who ruled for 24 years until his retirement in 2002, died in 2020.
Yesterday, Dr Ruto’s allies rallied residents to help drive the last nail on the Moi dynasty, citing last week’s defeat of his younger brother, Kanu chairman Gideon Moi in the Baringo Senatorial race.
Mr Gachagua and other leaders who had accompanied him called on residents to elect Mr Paul Chebor, the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) candidate.
“We already uprooted Gideon Moi from Baringo. I want to urge residents of Rongai to turn up in large numbers on Monday and vote overwhelmingly for Paul Chebor,” Gachagua told a crowd in Lower Solai.
“In Mt Kenya, we voted six-piece for our UDA candidates. Today, President-elect William Ruto sent me to Rongai to humbly ask you to vote for Paul Chebor to help him have numbers in Parliament. If you respect your son Ruto, please vote for the UDA candidate.”
Mr Gachagua asked voters to reject Mr Raymond Moi “and allow him to retire to go and enjoy Moi’s wealth.”
The leaders, who held rallies in Lower Solai, Majani Mingi, Burgei and Salgaa, received a rousing welcome from hundreds of their supporters.
The relationship between the Moi family and Dr Ruto has been one of an adopted son who rose to dethrone the anointed heir and is on his way to vanquish the family name on his path to even more glory.
Having been nurtured at the feet of his political mentor, President Moi, Dr Ruto made his first shot in elective politics in 1997, clinching the Eldoret North parliamentary seat.
In 2002, as key and senior political figures in Kanu exited the party after Mzee Moi picked the political novice Uhuru Kenyatta as his successor, Dr Ruto stuck with Kanu and President Kenyatta.
Gideon Moi was elected unopposed as Baringo Central MP to succeed his retiring father—who had represented the constituency since independence—but Kanu lost a chunk of its elected leadership.
But if the rains started beating Kanu and the Moi family in 2002, when the party lost the presidential elections for the first time in post-independence history, the problems came in torrents in the subsequent polls in 2007.
In that election, Dr Ruto joined Mr Raila Odinga’s side, and was driving an Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) wave in Rift Valley.
So powerful was the ODM wave then that Moi sons Gideon, Jonathan and Raymond, who were in MP races for Baringo Central, Eldama Ravine and Rongai constituencies respectively, all on a Kanu ticket, lost their bids.
Kanu, and by extension Moi, lost all the MP seats in his Baringo backyard to ODM, save for Prof Hellen Sambili who won the Mogotio seat on a United Democratic Movement ticket.
In a similar humiliation, firebrand Kanu Secretary-General Nick Salat also lost his Bomet parliamentary seat.
In the subsequent elections in 2013, he re-united with President Kenyatta and formed the Jubilee Coalition, which catapulted them to power in that election and their re-election bid in 2017.
Senator Moi, the political giant’s heir-apparent, backed President Kenyatta in the 2017 polls, but with no love lost between him and Dr Ruto.
Keen to exert his dominance in the Rift Valley, Dr Ruto, in his 2022 presidential bid went even further to vanquish the Moi family's influence in Rift Valley.
Senator Moi lost to Dr Ruto’s UDA candidate, William Cheptumo, with 71,408 votes against the three-term Baringo North MP’s 141,777 votes.
The Rongai parliamentary race, therefore, is a culmination of what appears to be Dr Ruto’s calculated, largely successful bid to remove the Moi family from the political scene and replace it with the new-found Samoei dominance.
Yesterday, the Gachagua-led team pushed this even further.
The Kenya Kwanza team first held a meeting at the Geranium Resort, owned by Mr Lee Njiru, former president Daniel Arap Moi’s longest-serving press secretary, before heading to Lower Solai for a series of rallies.
During the meeting which brought together various local leaders and opinion shapers from various wards in Rongai, Mr Njiru, for the first time, openly backed Mr Chebor's election to replace Raymond Moi.
Mr Gachagua was accompanied by Nakuru Governor-elect Susan Kihika, MPs Liza Chelule (Nakuru Woman Representative), Ndindi Nyoro (Kiharu), Mr Ichung’wa (Kikuyu), Joseph Tonui (Kuresoi South), Reuben Kiborek (Mogotio) among other leaders.
Mr Ichung’wa urged locals to vote for Mr Chebor, branding Raymond as a “Raila project”.
“I am told Raymond Moi only comes here every election to solicit for your votes, but after you vote for him he disappears. It is your time to teach him a lesson. Mois have wealth, let him go and enjoy what they already have," said Mr Nyoro.
Also in the race is Chama Cha Mashinani (CCM) candidate Luka Kigen. Political analysts say the contest is a two-horse race between Kanu and UDA.
“Raymond Moi faces a major battle in retaining his seat. The frosty relationship between the Mois and Ruto could complicate matters for him amid the UDA wave in the Rift Valley that swept through the region in the just-concluded August 9 polls,” lawyer and political analyst Steve Kabita told the Nation.
Kanu has won the seat four times since it was hived off the larger Nakuru North constituency — now Subukia — in 1988.
