Kenya. A third power pole of Ruto between the dynasties of Odinga and Kenyatta

Kenya went to the polls for the presidential election last August 9, 2022, whose two main candidates, William Ruto and Raila Odinga, had almost equal chances of replacing President Uhuru Kenyatta at the end of his second and last term. Does Ruto’s victory represent the establishment of a third power pole between the two main political dynasties in that East African country?

Historical Bases of the Kenyatta and Odinga Dynasties

In contrast to the multiple independence and nationalist movements that characterized Kenyan history in-between the first decades of the 20th century and the late 1960s – such as the KCA (Kikuyu Central Association) in the 1930s; the KAU (Kenyan African Union) in the 1940s – the KANU (Kenya African National Union), led by Jomo Kenyatta, was cementing itself as the main movement thanks to a policy of inclusion of important political figures from other movements and identity groups in its bosom, especially Oginda Odinga and Tom Mboya. The political divergences within KANU at the end of 1960s had indeed resulted in premature death of Tom Mboya in 1969, as well in the first and most significant dissidence from KANU when Oginda Odinga created his KPU (Kenya People’s Union) (See Issau Agostinho, in Amaral Lala, 2022). The political dialectic between Jomo Kenyatta’s KANU and Oginga Odinga’s KPU alongside the distinct identity provenance of both could have determined the birth of the two political dynasties in the country, which were consolidated over decades, and still remain indistinguishable influence over Kenyan political destiny.

An Attempt for a Third Power Pole with Daniel arap Moi

Following Jomo Kenyatta’s death in 1978, Daniel arap Moi replaced him as the head of the Kenyan state and government, remaining in power until 2002. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Moi opened up the national political framework to multiparty system, adapting both to the wave of the so-called “second decolonization of Africa” (Chazan, 1992) and to the internal pressures from Oginda Odinga, whom, having been expelled from KANU in the 1980s, to which he had returned after seeing his KPU banned by Kenyatta a decade earlier, became the fiercest critic of one-party rule that Moi operated in Kenya until 1992, when the country finally held its first multiparty elections, which he won.

At that time, with the various splits within KANU, the most notable being the one made by Mwai Kibaki, who sooner founded his DP (Democratic Party) in 1991 – the third most voted in the 1992 elections, and second most voted in the 1997 elections – Daniel arap Moi’s attempt to create a third pole of dynastic power under his watch was temporarily undermined by Kibaki. However, the bet made on the young William Ruto as his political “protégé” may have been one of the best options he has ever made for the future establishment of such a pole between two main dynasties, that of Raila Odinga, who left political life after his 1992 defeat and replaced by his son, Raila Odinga – who ran in the 1997 elections with his NDP (National Development Party) and received the third most votes – and that of Jomo Kenyatta, whose son, Uhuru Kenyatta, remained under both Moi and Kibaki’s umbrella, Kenya’s president from 2003 to 2012, when Uhuru Kenyatta replaced him as head of state after that year’s presidential elections.

Ruto’s Third Pole. A successful foresight by Daniel arap Moi

Despite its unfolding between 1990 and 2002, one of the main features that KANU has maintained since its founding is the inclusion of political figures not necessarily from Kikuyu group, since, in addition to Oginda Odinga and Tom Mboya (Luos), it has also included figures such as Daniel arap Moi and William Ruto (Kalenjin). Its multi-culturality and/or cultural trans-identity has helped it in legitimizing its status as national party and staying in power for such a long time, including during the one-party period: a one-party regime but multi-form political party.

Having been unable to convince KANU members to fully support Uhuru Kenyata as KANU’s unique candidate for the 2002 presidential elections, nevertheless Daniel arap Moi remained confident that both Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, already a KANU MP since 1997, would have constituted the two “prodigies” of political power and hope of that historic Kenyan force in years to come. The alliance between Ruto and Kenyatta bore its fruit at the end of Kibaki’s presidency, as both were elected Kenya’s vice president and president in 2013 and 2017 under the National Alliance (TNA) and the Jubilee Parties, following their resignation from KANU’s militancy earlier as more for tactical reasons than on the grounds of its historical and ideological relevance to both, defeating Raila Odinga under his new Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) on both occasions.

Although his eight years as vice president Ruto may have not established a third power pole for his own, this amount of time served him to acquire governing experience and political maturity needed for that aim. In other words, a sufficient proof of his consolidated experience, maturity and notoriety in the labyrinths of Kenyan “ethno”-politics, deep-state and political dynasties may be hidden into Kenyatta’s decision not to have publicly endorsed his candidacy over Raila Odinga’s, as part of the ongoing personal or political rapprochement between the former and the latter, as part of healing the 2017 post-elections crisis through the so-called Building Bridges Initiative (BBI). “The initiative – the brainchild of President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader, Raila Odinga – was conceived nearly in March 2018 in the famous “Handshake” agreement that ended months of post-election violence and confrontations that had seen dozens killed by the police”(See Patrick Gathara, 2019).

So, if Uhuru Kenyatta’s support for Raila Odinga for the 2022 presidential elections is not read and understood under the Kenyan political perception whereby the candidate chosen and/or supported by the outgoing president loses the forthcoming elections (in 2002 Uhuru Kenyatta, chosen by outgoing president Moi, lost the election that year), then it may mean that Kenyatta could have intended to prevent the birth of Ruto’s third pole. However, if it is read under that same historical perception, then the rapprochement between Kenyatta and Odinga may have been instrumental to Ruto’s rise to the Kenyan presidency, willingly or unwittingly.

In any case, the election of Ruto and the confirmation of his victory by the Kenyan Supreme Court last September 5, after a claim of electoral fraud filed by Odinga team, not only reveals the birth of a third pole of political power between the traditional Kenyatta and Odinga, it is also the beginning of the end of the political polarization between those two political dynasties, with both heirs of Jomo Kenyatta and Oginda Odinga at the exit doors of the political life at the State level (after two mandates for one, and 5th consecutive defeat to the presidency for the other, now 77 years old). It also reveals that Daniel arap Moi had a right political intuition by having bet on Ruto’s political career from his younger age, and that despite several metamorphoses occurred within KANU, its political and ideological offspring are still at the helm of the Kenyan state since its independence in 1963, whose strategy of inclusion and/or cohabitation between the Kikuyus and the Kalenjin remains a winner approach, as predicted, likewise, by Jomo Kenyatta with a bet on Moi, and not on Odinga a long ago.

Thus, in the coming decades, unless there will be radical changes in the country’s political culture, the Odingas and Kenyattas will be joined by the Rutos, as between the latter two there seems to be (as well) a natural alliance for power forged by their forefathers, without disregarding the numerous political families of great historical importance and practical scope in Kenyan society.

Issau Agostinho