It’s my turn, Ruto declares, as UDA endorses him to run for president

Deputy President William Ruto Tuesday got his party’s nod to run for president, framing the August 9 elections as a contest between retaining the old order that has ruined the nation and his transformative agenda.

In a bare-knuckle speech at the Kasarani gymnasium moments after taking an oath to steer his United Democratic Alliance (UDA) to victory, Ruto recalled how he had sacrificed his presidential ambitions for others as he declared it’s now his time to lead.

Addressing close to 5,000 UDA delegates, the DP dismissed President Kenyatta’s second term as wasted and attacked Jubilee, the party he and President Kenyatta were re-elected on in 2017, for forgetting the “original covenant, opting to oppress Kenyans through punitive economic policies”.

“From 2017, the party back-pedalled on its foundational commitment, including the founding covenant. The party rejected national inclusive, issue-based transformative leadership and embraced parochial, ethnic, divisive and retrogressive politics,” he said.

He added: “It defaulted to tribe as the organising variable of our politics and governance. It privatised governance and weaponised public policy and institutions. It pursued personal politics of congregating an entitled few to express their individual wishes as community interests and translate their private consensus as national policy.”

Troubles in Jubilee

While he noted that, in Jubilee’s first term, they had set the stage for national transformation, DP Ruto blamed the March 2018 truce between President Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga for the troubles in Jubilee in the second term.

“In our second term we witnessed accelerated regression into the tyranny, personality cult politics and the weaponisation of public offices to intimidate, harass and persecute Kenyans,” he said.

He pointed out that the battle lines in the August 9 polls had now been drawn, pitting him against those who support the status quo against his side, which believes in real change.

“On the ninth of August, there will be a competition of ideas and a competition of sides,” he said.

“On the ballot on the ninth of August, the great people of the Republic of Kenya will be two groups, one that believes that the way to the future of our country is through changing the constitution and our side that believes that the way to the future of our nation is by changing the economy of our nation,” the DP told the crowd that broke into chants against President Kenyatta.

Seven party leaders

The ecstatic delegates interrupted the DP’s address singing “Yote yawezekana bila Uhuru’ (All is possible without Uhuru), a rallying call that opposition supporters used in 2002 to berate then President Daniel Moi.

Present at the NDC were at least seven party leaders, including Musalia Mudavadi (ANC), Moses Wetang’ula (Ford Kenya), Mwangi Kiunjuri (The Service Party), Moses Kuria (Chama Cha Kazi), William Kabogo (Tujibebe) and Isaac Ruto (Chama Cha Mashinani) as well as Safina Party presidential hopeful Jimi Wanjigi.

The NDC also allowed the DP to negotiate with other like-minded parties.

“We are assembled here as UDA congress with our friends from ANC, Ford Kenya, Tujibebe, Safina, TSP, CCK, CCM and all the other parties united by one thing; that the future of our nation is premised on changing the economy of our nation,” he said.

“While our competitors believe that it’s through the changing of the constitution to create positions for a select few that will solve our problems of exclusion, on our side, we believe that the need to change the Constitution is to create opportunity and jobs for millions of young people out of school,” he said.

Big Four plan

“We are very clear that we had this plan in 2017. Unfortunately, the forces who do not want to share opportunities, who believe that Kenya is their privilege, that they own this nation, sabotaged the Big Four plan because they did not want the young people of this nation to get opportunities,” the DP said.

He went on: “I want to say with clarity and certainty that if we had not lost four years chasing a mirage, if we had taken time to implement the big four plan, Kenya would be different from what we have today.”

He added: “They have told us they will bring back the BBI monster because they want to create an imperial presidency; want a president who controls the Judiciary using the ombudsman; president who controls the Legislature using appointments; a president who does what he wants merely because he has power or influence and money. This country is about 50 million Kenyans and we will not accept their schemes.”

The DP lamented that it was unfortunate that his opponents believe the country belongs to those in power.

“They believe in impunity, monopolies and cartels. We want to tell them we believe in the rule of law. They have weaponised State institutions, DCI (Directorate of Criminal Investigations, EACC (Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission) and KRA (Kenya Revenue Authority) to run political errands, dismantled businesses that belong to people who do not worship them, but I want to tell them this country will change on our first day,” he said.

Restore country’s dignity

Mr Mudavadi said they came together to restore the dignity of the country.

“We want justice in our country, not justice for the rich and another for the poor. We stand in solidarity with the decision of UDA to endorse their flagbearer and we must send a clear message that we intend as partners to make sure resources of this country are utilised in accordance to the constitution,” he said.

“The President, “Mr Mudavadi went on, “must be there to serve all. The young and the budding businesses must be supported and protected. We want a leader who will not mistreat others because he is in power.”

In an apparent attack on Mr Odinga who has the backing of President Kenyatta, Mr Mudavadi said Kenyans must say no to the “Stockholm syndrome.”

“This is believing the person who has held you hostage is the one who will help you. We’re uniting with DP to save ourselves from such kind of people. We must save this country,” he said.

Ford Kenya’s Wetang’ula said the DP had outplayed those in power.

“Those who wanted to disgrace you ended up uplifting you to enormous and amazing grace. I’m sure they are in a corner of shame in the history of our country,” Mr Wetang’ula said.

The Ford Kenya leader said: “There’s a common saying that what you think is your tragedy is in fact God’s strategy for you... When the people decide and take their power, no army, police, money or malice will stand in their way.”

Levers of State power

The DP said that many large enterprises were destroyed many business owners harassed and leaders subjected to humiliation, intimidation and blackmail by the current regime “because their only crime was holding contrary opinions to those holding the levers of State power.”

“A new phrase of national unity was engineered in undemocratic and in terms that rationalised grounding and swallowing the whole opposition and the dismantling of the Constitution to accommodate corrupt and dangerous ethnic arrangements,” he said.

“Those who remained loyal to our founding vision were shunned, hounded, threatened and then persecuted. This is how we lost four years that would have gifted us the brilliant blossoming of a beautiful dream that inspired millions of Kenyans in 2013,” he said.

He thanked President Kenyatta for the working relationship that they have had, arguing that he had performed his tasks as required.

“President Kenyatta told me he needed space to work on his personal legacy as the fourth president. I obliged and this led to my eventual retreat to the margins of a government that I had participated in forming.”

“The past four years have provided me [with] special moments to be able to engage consistently with ordinary people. As Deputy President, I’ve worked directly with wananchi, going to meet them in their villages, markets, farms and their places of work and to have practised listening more and speaking less,” he said. The DP termed as shameless deception by President Kenyatta that “national unity is the coalescing of a few leaders to organise their selfish interests with an implacable sense of exclusive entitlement to the privileges associated with state power.”

“This entitlement is the basis for the formulation of a cynical agenda to capture the state and disenfranchise ordinary people for good,” the DP said, terming it as the reason the country had witnessed what he saw as the criminalisation of enterprise, marginalisation of livelihoods and many paths form part and parcel of this contemptuous exclusion.”

He said the “Hustler Nation” will continue to embrace the down-trodden of society, and that Kenyans should have the opportunity to hustle from the bottom.

“The top, therefore, should be everyone’s aspiration, objective and ideal destination. It’s not bottom versus up, it is bottom up,” the DP said.