Deputy President William Ruto’s campaign targeting jobless youth, characterised with generous donations and parading of defectors appears to replay strategies of the Youth for Kanu (YK ‘92) used to promote the ruling party in 1992.
With President Moi and Kanu’s grip on power threatened, young leaders led by Cyrus Jirongo and Mr Ruto, fresh out of university, would also join the group that had massive State resources at its disposal to counter the opposition.
YK ’92 promised opportunities for unemployed youth and other marginalised groups and backed this rhetoric with massive resources to counter the growing militancy against Kanu’s rule.
Then, as is the case now, the scramble was for the massive numbers of unemployed youth, the workers and small business people in the informal sector -- a group Dr Ruto is courting with the ‘hustler’ narrative.
Cyrus Jirongo (third from left) speaks with President Daniel Moi.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
“The YK '92 mobilised the youth all over the country, promising a Kanu change from within and opportunities for unemployed youth and other marginalised groups. A lot of resources backed this rhetoric,” political analysts Karuti Kanyinga and Murimi Njoka wrote in The Role of Youth in Politics: The Social Praxis of Party Politics Among the Urban Lumpen in Kenya.
It is a strategy that Dr Ruto seems to have embraced, hosting numerous delegations of youth at his Karen home to donate things like car wash machines and promoting their businesses on his various campaign stops across the country, with the promise of better days should he win power.
And the DP’s generous donations, particularly during church functions, have infuriated his rivals, who accuse him of attempting to buy his way to the top seat.
YK ’92 splashed cash at the grassroots to the extent that the Sh500 note dished out during campaigns for the first multi-party election came to be known as the “Jirongo,” after the group’s leader.
The group zoned Kanu strongholds, mobilised support in opposition areas and capitalised on defections to give the impression more people were trooping to President Moi’s corner.
Just like in 1992, Dr Ruto has snatched some leaders previously allied to his rivals including Eliud Owalo, who was Raila Odinga’s campaign manager; a long-time ally of Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka, Johnstone Muthama; Dr Boni Kwalwale, who deputised Musalia Mudavadi in Amani National Congress and Omar Hassan.
Admitted into the ranks of YK ’92 as a 25-year-old for his shrewdness and impeccable oratory skills, Dr Ruto is drawing from the lessons of this political movement 28 years ago by reenacting its grassroots networks to popularise himself in every corner of the country.
And his skills are paying off, given for so long no politician other than Mr Odinga has been able to pull masses wherever he went.
His recent public appearances in Kisii, Kajiado, Ziwani and Bungoma have attracted massive crowds , thrilled by his message that a hustler also has a chance of becoming the country’s chief executive.
Deputy President William Ruto in Kisii.
Photo credit: Ruth Mbula | Nation Media Group
Like the YK ‘92 recruitment drives, his strategy is not only to solidify his hold on his Rift Valley backyard – and keep Mt Kenya in his corner, but to also spread his tentacles to opposition areas, where he is working to gain traction in Nyanza and Western regions.
And just like YK ’92 worked to reverse the demonising of then-President Moi by the opposition, the DP’s camp is working to counter his unflattering portrayal.
Mr Jirongo refused to comment on the DP’s moves, saying the YK ‘92 is an old story.
Political analyst Edward Kisiang’ani believes the new friends the DP is courting will bring more to the movement.
Prof Kisiang’ani, however, sought to differentiate the YK ‘92 tactics, which he said had no values, from the current hustler movement, which he said resonates with the needs of the common mwananchi.
“The Ruto of 2018 was a very weak and cornered man. But the Ruto of 2020 is very influential and powerful. Right now, he is very different. The Raila of 2017 was very strong, but if you pit him against the new Ruto now, he will be defeated resoundingly,” Prof Kisiang’ani argued.
“Whereas Raila severed his ties with Rift Valley in 2013 and has already burned his bridges with Nasa co-principals in Western Kenya, DP Ruto’s tactics are giving him inroads to these areas and winning over new friends every day,” he reckoned.
However, political analyst Herman Manyora dismissed the numerous defections as window-dressing exercises.
“Ruto’s moves are more perceptional, the movement of Owalo to his team will not bring anything to him. It is all about creating a narrative that people are moving to Ruto,” explained Mr Manyora. “DP Ruto is trying to send signals and pass the message that he is not a weak man. He is trying to psychologically position himself and prevent his supporters from aligning themselves to other people. His show of might is more for his people than for his political enemies.”
Whereas Dr Ruto’s strategy may be seen to be working, political analyst Mark Bichache believes that the narrative the DP is using is weak and can be deconstructed with relative ease.
Drawing from Ruto’s history, he questioned how the DP could call himself a hustler yet he was already absorbed in YK ‘92 at a very young age and has since been in appointive or elective positions.
“If you look at most of the tribes in Kenya, you see them saying, we eat at so and so, but vote for so and so. He’s playing classic Moi tactics, his hustler nation is same to the Moi slogan of siasa mbaya, maisha mbaya.
“He has borrowed from Moi by trying to use money to buy people and borrowed from Odinga in that he is trying to predict his loss earlier and blaming the deep state for rigging him out. He is simply doing things that have been done before. Eventually they did not ultimately work for these who used them,” Mr Bichache said.
The run-up to the 1992 elections was marred by an economy in turmoil, corruption, constant riots, a highly charged political climate and police brutality.
Prof Kanyinga reckoned the downfall of Dr Ruto will be that he is the “most contradictory politician” of the times.
“DP Ruto has been very silent on matters of gender, he was also a big opponent to the current constitution before he got into government yet he is now strongly defending it. Had he been an honest man, he would never have vied in the 2013 polls.
“He cannot convince anyone with his track record. He is simply mobilising and strategising for the short term basis by looking at the most elaborate gaps and seeking how to fill them in the most convincing manner. It is all a short-term strategy to get him to office and it does not have to be a measure of stability,” argued Prof Kanyinga.
In an interview in 2016, Prof Macharia Munene remarked: “It (YK-92) is a study case that people should pay attention to but not replicate".
