Ruto: I'll protect Kenyatta family interests
What you need to know:
- DP says he cannot betray the friendship he has built with the president over the years.
- President Kenyatta has endorsed Mr Odinga as his preferred successor in the August elections.
Deputy President William Ruto yesterday regretted that President Uhuru Kenyatta had wrongly judged him as someone who would not protect his interests after retirement.
Addressing Kenya Kwanza Alliance supporters in Murang’a County yesterday, DP Ruto said he would not betray the friendship he has cultivated with President Kenyatta for more than two decades.
“We’ve been through many challenges together, including facing the International Criminal Court cases at The Hague. We faced Mr Raila Odinga together in 2002, 2013 and twice in 2017. It was a mistake to alienate me for Mr Odinga,” he said.
“My greatest shock was that even if he felt I was not fit to succeed him, certainly by settling on Mr Odinga, who had given us all sorts of political problems, was the height of betrayal,” he added.
The DP assured President Kenyatta that if elected, he would protect his legacy and that of his family.
His allies, however, accused the President and his strategists of capturing the national economy, alleging that it’s now being controlled by cartels and brokers.
They said the end result has been an economy that favours the rich, with the middle-class now bearing the “cruel effects of taxation”.
Dr Ruto vowed to deliver the economy from the “exclusive club capture” and hand it over to Kenyans, where “all will enjoy equal opportunities”.
Retire in peace and go home
“My government will ensure tenders are won competitively and fairly, export and import licenses are liberalised and taxation brackets are commensurate with earnings. We will ensure indigenous companies are protected from unfair competition by multinationals,” he said.
ANC Party leader Musalia Mudavadi said: “The systematic alienation of Dr Ruto from power was for purposes of consolidating economic opportunities to an exclusive club. They have borrowed Sh8 trillion and intending to go on until they hit Sh12 trillion by August 9. That is money that has gone to selected few but which will be paid for with interest by all of us,” he said.
Former Kiambu Governor William Kabogo said President Kenyatta was wrong to think that he could force the people of Mt Kenya to elect Mr Odinga. He urged the President to retire in peace and go home.
Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria said President Kenyatta had become an enemy of Mt Kenya “and we will pay him in kind by ensuring we reject his Odinga project”.
Dr Ruto said the economy has neither been creating jobs for fresh graduates nor encouraging self-employment since “it has been busy placing all its gains in the pockets of a selected few”.
He said those selected few are the ones who cannot imagine his presidency. “They have come together and ganged up against the poor,” Dr Ruto said.
Murang’a Senator Irungu Kang’ata said the President's opposition to his deputy's ascending to power has nothing to do with any legally founded suspicion.
