Deputy President William Ruto and his new political ally, Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi, have joined forces to poke holes in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s legacy, making it a campaign issue in the August 9 elections.
On the flipside, Azimio la Umoja leader Raila Odinga, who entered into a truce with his erstwhile political rival President Kenyatta in March 2018 in the ‘handshake’, says he will follow in the footsteps of the Head of State, even as he avoids discussing Jubilee’s performance.
“I heard that the President is disappointed in me. You have a right to be disappointed, but Mr President, Kenyans are even more disappointed. Kenyans are hungry. Kenyans have a huge debt burden. Kenyans are overtaxed and jobless. Let us not lie to each other,” said Mr Mudavadi last week in Eldama Ravine.
Ironically, Mr Mudavadi’s attacks on President Kenyatta’s government often always comes after the DP has listed the achievements of the Jubilee administration, which he is a part of.
The ANC leader and Dr Ruto have joined hands with Ford Kenya’s Moses Wetang’ula under the Kenya Kwanza umbrella.
“The private partners in these cartel-style deals are people in government, working with their close family members and cronies. These people are literally eating up our country. They are eating you up. For how long will we allow this to go on?” Mr Mudavadi asked at the ANC national delegates meeting on Sunday, January 23.
“Government is now about formalised corruption, through budgeting to steal. We have allowed the criminal mind to take over the budgeting process. It budgets for corruption,” Mr Mudavadi said.
At the same time, the DP continues to take credit for the Jubilee administration’s successes, while attacking the political collaboration of Mr Kenyatta and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) boss, Mr Odinga, saying it is the genesis of a lopsided government agenda.
While painting Mr Kenyatta’s legacy negatively, the DP is promising that if elected on August 9, he will revive what he describes as the ‘flopped’ Big Four Agenda.
“You gave us an opportunity to plan for the second phase of development of the country which was the Big Four Agenda -- housing, agriculture, universal health care and manufacturing -- but all these did not take place because of individuals who visited us and brought another agenda to change the Constitution to create positions for themselves,” said Dr Ruto.
“Even if the President is going to retire in seven months, I, William Ruto, will fulfill the pledge for you because the solution to debt is to pay debt. I will roll out all the agenda of this administration which failed to take place,” he added.
However, yesterday, allies of the Head of State came out guns blazing telling off Mr Mudavadi and Dr Ruto, saying they had no moral authority to lecture President Kenyatta, as well as criticising development projects which he has rolled out across the country.
“Birds of a feather flock together, and naturally will attempt to portray one another as the clean team, while bad mouthing others. Isn’t it ridiculous that three ‘presidential candidates’ are campaigning together - who is the real one, and who are the Trojan horses?” asked National Assembly Majority Leader and Kipipiri MP Amos Kimunya.
Nyeri Town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu termed the ANC leader a hypocrite, saying he was only after shifting goalposts, which portrayed him as an insincere politician.
“Mudavadi is in completely uncharted waters. He didn’t expect his OKA co-principals to walk out after Ruto showed up. Now he has been left with only Ruto as his partner; someone he has insulted over the years. So he has to try and clean up what he has been saying about Ruto; and try to redirect the corruption claims he has made against Ruto to someone else; Uhuru. Unfortunately, it’s just making him look really, really bad,” Mr Wambugu said.
United Democratic Party (UDP)’s Cyrus Jirongo said Mr Mudavadi should be the last person to attack the Head of State.
“The economy of this country was destroyed in 1992/3 through Goldenberg. You have joined hands with a fellow corrupt person to lecture Kenyans about corruption. Let us embrace honesty in our politics, not selfish agenda,” Mr Jirongo said in Kitui on Thursday as the crowd cheered.
Gatanga MP Joseph Nduati accused the DP’s camp of being insincere regarding the development record of the President.
“No one should say the President is not working, in fact, a number of developments are ongoing including in his Mount Kenya backyard, more so roads, dams, electricity among others,’ said Mr Nduati.
But allies of Dr Ruto, led by Bomet Senator Christopher Langat said they were only taking credit for development that took place in the first term of the Jubilee administration while the things that went wrong in the second term solely lie with Mr Odinga, the former Prime Minister.
“After ‘Handshake’, expectations were that after bringing Raila on board, he had a conducive environment to implement unpopular economic strategies and build the Big Four Agenda, but what he has done is to ensure that his business empires thrive,” said Dr Langat.
Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa said the government became dysfunctional from the day the Head of State and the ODM leader shook hands, therefore, the DP’s camp was not going to allow the failures of the government to be used to pin him down.
“The electricity connections, the very many kilometres, water, which were done by Jubilee administration, they were done during Uhuruto marriage … but the coming together of Uhuru and Raila has been all about Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), referendum, skyrocketing debts, that is why we need to separate the two,” he said.
Dr Ruto, who has been bragging that he helped Mr Kenyatta become President, and the ODM chief become Prime Minister in 2007, said the two were now bitter with him because he decided to empower the poor through his ‘Hustler nation’ campaign.
“I am competing with several powerful people who are currently very bitter with me, saying that I am inciting those at the lower cadre by telling them what they can get. That I should have kept quiet so that they can change the Constitution to create positions to share among themselves,” said Dr Ruto recently.
The DP said his focus would be on job creation, empowering micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), cheap credit, revival of agriculture, social welfare as well as universal healthcare.
On top of his plan, the DP said that he embraces a “bottom up” economic model, which will create more job opportunities and transform lives.
“We cannot accept to continue with an economic model that benefits only a few people. This year, in our first budget, we will put aside Sh100 billion to leverage our economy which focuses on housing, manufacturing, and agro-processing, unlike our competitors who are claiming that our youths deserve handouts,” said the DP.
