President William Ruto made political history in Central Kenya in 2022 by becoming the first presidential aspirant from outside the community to win unanimous endorsement from the region.
When he was sworn into office on September 13, 2022, the region was upbeat that their journey to political Canaan had finally arrived, with Dr Ruto as the governance messiah.
He swept the region off its feet by garnering 87 per cent of the votes. His United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party captured nearly all the seats on offer.
It was even more dramatic since, in executing that feat, he defeated the then reigning kingpin, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, the outgoing president, who had endorsed opposition chief Raila Odinga as the presidential candidate on an Azimio ticket, with Martha Karua, a daughter of the land, as his running mate.
“Since independence, our voters have always ganged up against presidential bids from outside the region until Dr Ruto happened in 2022. It is something that needs to be researched and recorded for posterity to exactly understand how it happened,” says Kikuyu Council of Elders Chairman Wachira Kiago.
Mr Kiago says the explanations given by some politicians are guesswork, with some saying it was a protest vote against Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, while others think Dr Ruto’s Hustler narrative simply resonated with the masses.
“Coming from a bad episode of the 2007/2008 post-election violence, especially in the Rift Valley, we as a community needed peace. We have a great stake in this country,” Mr Kiago says.
He adds that the International Criminal Court (ICC), which indicted Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto among the six suspects in the violence before later acquitting them, “came as the glue that made us look for partnership as the two main antagonist communities in the mayhem”.
He recalls that then President Mwai Kibaki and other multi-sectoral stakeholders brought together Mr Kenyatta as presidential candidate and Dr Ruto as his running mate in the 2013 General Election, where the two rose to power.
Long-time provincial administrator Joseph Kaguthi says of 2013: “We had no choice but to bring Dr Ruto to our side to hit two birds with one stone: stabilise the Rift Valley region where our people live and win them peace, as well as bid for power together.”
And it happened. Mr Kenyatta became the presidential candidate with Dr Ruto as his running mate. They won the poll against the odds and were also eventually let off by the ICC.
President William Ruto when he paid a courtesy call to former President Uhuru Kenyatta in Gatundu on December 9, 2024.
Photo credit: Pool
A marriage between Mt Kenya and the Rift Valley regions was always considered potent. Mr Eliud Mahihu, a one-time aide and confidant of founding president Jomo Kenyatta, wrote in his autobiography that the founding head of state desired his successor to be someone who would foster harmony between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin.
So cosy was the newfound unity between Mr Kenyatta and Dr Ruto that, perhaps in the heat of the feel-good effect, the former promised in advance to rule for 10 years and hand over the mantle to Dr Ruto in the infamous “kumi yangu, kumi ya William” declaration.
The promise became a trap for Central Kenya. Observers wanted to see whether the region could make a political promise and keep it, especially in favour of an “outsider”.
“Of course, we as a community value trust, and we will forever pay good with good. Ruto had helped us defeat the ICC and also defeat Raila Odinga in 2013 to sustain a grip on power. Uhuru Kenyatta had promised him a reciprocation of favour and we were cornered by our own honesty and commitment to trust,” says elder Kung’u Muigai.
He adds: “Though we had serious reservations about voting for Dr Ruto in 2022 – since his boss, Uhuru, had openly reneged on his promise – our honour to trust and promise won the day and we adopted the son from Kamagut as our political partner.”
Dr Ruto went on to humiliate Mr Kenyatta, as Mr Odinga managed only 12 per cent of the region’s votes.
Dr Ruto and his deputy Rigathi Gachagua became the new ultimate political power lords in the country, and Mt Kenya was full of optimism.
President William Ruto and his former deputy Rigathi Gachagua share a light moment during a Kenya Kwanza campaign rally at Karatina town on May 21, 2022.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
“Our madness of fanatical support had reached another level. But politically, it should be understood that the love for Dr Ruto in the Mountain was so huge that our people were willing to throw their own Uhuru Kenyatta under the bus in expression of their government’s support,” says Prof Kagwanja.
“This blind love was not helped by the fact that the man we had sent to deputise Dr Ruto – in the name of Gachagua – had not exercised any form of wisdom in first demanding structured engagement.”
Prof Kagwanja adds: “We got ourselves into a position of a bride who hurriedly got into courtship, moved into the bridegroom’s home, surrendered ourselves with total abandon, and even got pregnant without any formal nuptials or setting of dowry.”
And so, when President Ruto’s administration began pursuing controversial policies, and whispers of tensions between the President and his deputy emerged, Mt Kenya took an interest.
“When it became apparent that President Ruto was not comfortable with Mr Gachagua being the Mt Kenya kingpin – due to his obsession with his tribe – and Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro started being propped up, eyebrows were raised,” says Mr Kaguthi.
Mr Kiago says it did not take long before President Ruto’s administration started facing allegations of overtaxation, failure to keep promises, human rights abuses, and disrespect for Mt Kenya’s quest to have Mr Gachagua as kingpin.
He argues that by the close of the first year in power, Mt Kenya had developed serious reservations about the correctness of voting for Dr Ruto.
By the time the Gen Z uprising came in June 2024, the region was no longer hiding its negative passions against President Ruto’s rule.
“Then came the last straw that broke the camel’s back... President Ruto’s government painted Mt Kenya as the face of violence in the Gen Z protests. Mr Gachagua was no longer the dutiful principal assistant to the President. He had rebelled,” says political analyst John Okumu.
Mr Okumu goes on: “President Ruto responded by getting loyalists from Mt Kenya to counter Mr Gachagua, and the readily available hands were led by National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah, Laikipia East MP Mwangi Kiunjuri, among many others.”
Mr Okumu argues that there are people who convinced President Ruto to impeach Mr Gachagua in October 2024 “and rebuild a network of new trust in the Mountain”.
Before the impeachment plan could be actualised, President Ruto proved he had sharp political instincts when he first reached out to Mr Odinga for cooperation.
“With Raila on his side, President Ruto impeached Mr Gachagua, brought in Prof Kithure Kindiki as his new deputy, and things went from bad to worse in Mt Kenya. There was no longer love in the Mountain, only open rebellion that included heckling the President,” says New Gema Chairman Isaac Mungai.
Mr Mungai, 34, says: “That is when Mt Kenya started saying it regretted going against Mr Kenyatta’s counsel to avoid voting for Ruto.”
With the Finance Bill, 2024 and impeachment passions, Mt Kenya turned into a tough opposition zone for President Ruto’s government.
Mr Gachagua has since formed the Democracy for Citizens Party (DCP), through which he intends to join forces with regional leaders like Wiper’s Kalonzo Musyoka, DAP-Kenya party boss Eugene Wamalwa, former Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, Trans Nzoia Governor George Natembeya, and PLP leader Martha Karua, among others, to make Dr Ruto a one-term president.
Opposition leaders Eugene Wamalwa, Rigathi Gachagua, Martha Karua, Kalonzo Musyoka, Fred Matiang'i, Mukhisa Kituyi, Justin Muturi and Mithika Linturi in Nairobi on April 29, 2025.
Photo credit: Pool
However, the President has been deploying a combination of tactics that include making peace with Mr Kenyatta, unleashing Prof Kindiki with money and foodstuffs to woo the region back, retaining superior numbers of Cabinet appointees, as well as keeping the loyalty of most elected leaders from the region.
Mr Kiunjuri says: “President Ruto is going nowhere. He will surprise many by winning his second term with a landslide, and in that win, Mt Kenya will have contributed more than 60 per cent.”
The same sentiments are shared by Information Technology Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo, who, in a recent Inooro TV interview, dismissed Mr Gachagua as “a dreamer on a journey to nowhere”.
Prof Macharia Munene, a history scholar, says it is clear that it is not all rosy between Dr Ruto and Mt Kenya.
“As both camps trade barbs, not in dispute is that the three years of President Ruto in Mt Kenya are not as rosy as they were when he took his oath of office. He was a darling; today, it is not exactly that,” says Prof Munene.
As he marks his third year in office this week, Dr Ruto and his allies will be keen to regain control of the Mountain, while Mr Gachagua will intensify efforts to tighten his grip ahead of the 2027 elections.
