President William Ruto’s four-day tour of Nyanza, which ended on Saturday mirrors former head of State Daniel arap Moi’s visit nearly three decades ago to woo the opposition-leaning region ahead of the 1997 General Elections.
As captured in the iconic Weekly Review published on July 5, 1996, with a screaming headline; Wooing Luoland, that has been circulating online as it mirrors the current political landscape, Moi at the time had similar concerns in Mt Kenya region and aimed to make inroads in Nyanza, an opposition stronghold.
The high-profile visit by Moi to the former South Nyanza District – now composed of Migori and Homa Bay— had major implications for a debate that had been going on among the top leadership of the then ruling party, Kanu.
There had been a battle between two groups within the leadership of the formerly Baba na Mama party over the strategy which the ruling party ought to adopt in attempts to penetrate the Luo and Kikuyu communities, which voted for the opposition in the 1992 election. Strategists at the time reckoned it was easier for Moi to recapture the Nyanza vote than the Mt Kenya one.
In the current scenario, whereas the majority of the voters in Central Kenya backed President Ruto in the 2022 election, there has been simmering tension between the president and his Deputy Rigathi Gachagua.
President William Ruto admires a giant fish he was gifted by residents of Kisumu on August 29, 2024.
Photo credit: PHOTO | PCS
Mt Kenya has become increasingly restless, with concern gripping President Ruto’s camp that the region could slip away thus the need to seek alternative votes.
There are growing concerns that Mr Gachagua, who has been crisscrossing Mt Kenya to mobilise support, could make a surprise move to face off against his boss in the 2027 election particularly should the political situation deteriorate. But for now, Mr Gachagua, who accompanied his boss on the Nyanza tour, has publicly maintained his loyalty to Dr Ruto while, at the same, seeking to be the mountain’s kingpin.
Further, still, the role of Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi in the Ruto administration also seems to have threatened the DP’s camp with concerns raised that he could be destined for a major post in Kenya Kwanza, especially after agreeing to merge his Amani National Congress party with United Democratic Alliance.
But it is the recent surprise move by President Ruto to bring in key figures from the opposition Azimio coalition that appears to have signalled an even more significant shift. Some analysts view the forging of close links with Mr Raila Odinga’s camp as checkmating the restive Mt Kenya region.
The high-profile leaders named in the broad-based Cabinet are former ODM deputy party leaders Hassan Joho and Wycliffe Oparanya, former ODM National Chairman John Mbadi and ex-secretary of Political Affairs Opiyo Wandayi as well as former member of the party’s elections board, Ms Beatrice Askul.
Political analyst and a university lecturer at City University of New York, Prof David Monda, argues that Mr Odinga’s quest for the chairmanship of the African Union Commission (AUC) has given both President Ruto and Mr Gachagua an opportunity to offer him full support with a view to possibly reaping from his traditional support bases.
Mr Odinga has enjoyed massive support from his Nyanza backyard, Western and the Coast regions in his previous campaigns for the president of Kenya. “William Ruto and the DP are glad to have the biggest threat to their 2027 reelection bid move out of the country and be domiciled in Addis Ababa.
By virtue of Raila’s diplomatic posting in Addis, he will be limited on what he can and cannot say in criticising the Ruto administration,” Prof Monday says. He argues that both the president and his deputy are fighting for the attention of the Nyanza region— whichever direction political fate takes them in the 2027 election.
“Not only in supporting Raila’s bid at the AU but dishing out four key dockets in Cabinet to ODM— including the critical docket of Treasury to John Mbadi and Energy to Opiyo Wandayi, who are both politicians from Luo Nyanza. So, it couldn’t be clearer, they are fighting for the attention of the region,” he says.
President William Ruto speaking to Kisumu residents at Kondele during his visit on August 31, 2024. He met the people at Kondele after a site groundbreaking ceremony of the proposed Lake Victoria Maritime Rescue Centre.
Photo credit: Alex Odhiambo| Nation
Just as in the 1996 Moi visit to the Nyanza region, one faction in the former president’s camp had taken the position that the ruling party had better chances of success in Nyanza than in Kikuyuland.
On the other hand, the opposing group had been telling the top leadership of the party to concentrate on wooing Central Kenya to the ruling party. During a meeting of Kanu’s national executive committee in the runup to the Moi Nyanza trip in 1996, North-Eastern Province’s representative to the committee, Noor Abdi Ogle, was reported to had brought the matter up before the committee.
Ogle is said to have argued that the ruling party had continued, to spend “disproportionate resources and time in trying to woo the Kikuyu community back to the ruling party, even in the face of evidence that the efforts were not yielding much.” Ogle is said to have also spoken against the supposed hypocrisy of Central Kenya leaders who, he said, “had kept President Moi busy by sponsoring defections in quick succession to give the impression that the community was changing his political allegiance.”
According to that edition of the Weekly Review, he is said to have suggested that the ruling party (Kanu) should put more effort into wooing the Nyanza region that was easier to deal with.
When Moi toured the region at the time, he was accompanied by local legislators a majority of who pledged to back his administration, just as President Ruto got full support and a rousing welcome different from the past. The then MP for Karachuonyo Phoebe Asiyo reportedly assured Moi of the community’s support in the coming election. “Luos are with you, and come to the next election, you will get all their votes,” she said.
However, in the 1997 poll, the community largely voted for Mr Odinga, who contested for the top seat for the first time on little little-known National Development Party (NDP) and came a distant third.
He garnered 667,886 votes (10.79 per cent), behind Mwai Kibaki of the Democratic Party (DP) who polled 1,911,742 votes (30.89 per cent). President Moi managed to secure victory after polling 2,500,865 (40.4 per cent), but the results were disputed. But in the post-election period, his 1996 visit was not in vain.
Mr Odinga would, however, later join forces with Moi under a Kanu-NDP cooperation with his lieutenants including himself being named to the Cabinet, before the two parties merged. But even before Moi worked with Mr Odinga, the former president had even made prior attempts to woe his father, Kenya's first vice president Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
Despite several protests by some key allies of the Head of State, he saw some political good sense in accommodating Jaramogi.
For a middle ground between pro- and anti-Jaramogi forces, he appointed him chairman of a state corporation, the Cotton Lint and Marketing Board. Fast forward to the just concluded President Ruto’s Nyanza trip, for a leader who was literally under siege for close to two months from the nationwide youthled protests, the crowds, the cheers and the warm reception in the region offered good optics for his shaky political support in Mr Gachagua’s Mt Kenya region.
Gladys Wanga, Homabay Governor (Left) and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua in a dance at Magunga in Homabay County on August 29, 2024.
Photo credit: Alex Odhiambo| Nation Media Group
To endear himself to the region that voted against him in 2022, he had to shower praises on Mr Odinga. “We have abandoned the retrogressive politics of division. We are better off with the new inclusive government that sets Kenya for a take-off,” the President said in Homa Bay Thursday, August 29.
He told the crowd that Mr Odinga’s decision to support him deliver on his mandate is based on their past relations.
“I was once his foot soldier, and there was a time I once helped him. If Baba returns a hand to help me, is there any problem?” President Ruto asked. “I and Baba (Raila), have come from far. We have been close for many years. I took the decision to help Baba because I respect him. He is a reformist who has fought for democracy. This is why we have resolved as the East African Community to support him for the AU Commission seat.” Uriri MP Mark Nyamita said the warm welcome the President got indicates that Nyanza is ready to work with Dr Ruto. Mr Nyamita added that the region has been yearning to be part of the government.
“The appointments of our brothers to the Cabinet and the allocation of money to finance projects have excited the region. There is now a feeling that our political future as a region is with Dr Ruto and not any other politician,” he said.
