Ruto in dilemma as Kang'ata UDA exit jolts battle for Central vote

The decision by Murang’a Governor, Irungu Kang’ata, to bolt out of President William Ruto’s fold ahead of next year’s elections marks a major turning point in the Mt Kenya political supremacy duel.

It is the latest indicator of the Riggy G effect sweeping the region where former Deputy President, Rigathi Gachagua, has rolled out what he calls fagia (wipe out) campaign targeting to replace UDA elected leaders with his Democratic Citizen Party (DCP) allies.

Gachagua identified all UDA loyalists who supported his impeachment vote in the National Assembly and Senate and labeled them as ‘traitors’ of the mountain political interests.

“It will not end well for UDA, at least in my (Mt Kenya) region,”  Kang’ata said on prime TV interview on a local TV station hours after he dropped the bombshell that he would not be seeking re-election on a UDA ticket next year.

Kangata, the soft spoken master of political calculations, becomes the first sitting governor in the Mt Kenya region to publicly declare that all was not well for the ruling UDA party in the region and, in effect, he was not going down with it.

Siding with Tangatanga

Kang’ata bolted out of UDA five weeks after Rigathi Gachagua warned President Wiilliam Ruto that he does not “know or understand the mountain people.”

“These people may have voted for you in 2022 but do not make the mistake to imagine you know them. You do not know them,” Gachagua said when he addressed mourners on April 1, during the funeral of the late Kirinyaga Senate Daniel Karaba.

A confidant of Ruto since he was ousted as Jubilee Party Senate Majority Whip  in February 2021 for siding with the Tangatanga axis of Uhuru succession politics, the governor’s exit from UDA makes for ugly optics for the president and the UDA.

Kang’ata is the latest big fish the Riggy G effect has smoked out of ambivalent fence sitting after months of speculation and evasive statements that he was focused on service delivery and not politics each time he was pressed to state his political stand.

While he was keen to project a facade of neutrality, Kang’ata was known to have been among high profile leaders in Mt Kenya region, including Kirinyaga Governor, Ann Waiguru and Prof Kithure Kindiki who were perceived as potential replacements of Gachagua as deputy president after his impeachment.

The leaders used MPs to lobby for the position and spend huge resources in the process.

Some of them would even seek audience with the late ODM leader, Raila Odinga, to rally the party’s elected leaders to support their bid.

Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wa in a post on his social media accounts, accused Kang’ata of hypocrisy for abandoning UDA, insinuating that he was allegedly sulking after his ambitions to replace Gachagua as DP flopped.

Guilty by association

But Kanga’ta said the timing was important because his silence had been construed to imply he silently supported President William Ruto, in a region which had increasingly become hostile to UDA and the Kenya Kwanza administration. His silence, he said, made him look guilty by association and he needed to clear the air.

The governor said his drastic move was not unusual coming from Murang’a:

“Murang’a has been at the centre of major turning points in the history of Kenya. Founding fathers of second liberation Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia were from Murang’a. Kariuki Njiiri, who resigned his Legco position to create room for Jomo Kenyatta to be eligible to attend the 1962 Lancaster Conference, was from Murang’a,” he said.

Matiba, Rubia and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga were leading opposition voices that set in motion the return of multi-party politics after three decades of the Kanu rule.

The part Kang’ata silently left out was not only that he had considered his own party on which to seek re-election, but that Gachagua had on several occasions publicly challenged him to make up his mind and join DCP or he would unleash former Water and Irrigation PS Mr Joseph Wairagu to take him on in the 2027 elections.

“I have asked Mr Wairagu to assist me in my Nairobi office. If Irungu Kang’ata does not make up his mind in the next three months, I will unleash a DCP candidate on him,” the former DP said in April.

On Wednesday, Gachagua went back to Murang’a, where he publicly congratulated Kang’ata for “seeing the light” and abandoning UDA, which he often mocks as uprooted from the Mt Kenya region, but which still counts many loyal elected officials in its ranks from the region.

The political influence Kang’ata commands in Murang’a and Mt Kenya may be debatable, but the consequential impact of his defection from President Ruto’s party is likely to affirm the growing confidence in Gachagua as the undisputed kingpin who would hold sway on who gets elected in the region.

To save his political skin, the governor has chosen to lie low and watch what may look like a trickle at the moment but which could break into a flood of high profile defections from UDA to DCP and other opposition leaning outfits in the region.

The fault-lines between the pro-DCP and Pro-UDA political formations is such that even social events like funeral events and church functions are perceived and labeled either Riggy-G or Ruto events to be honored or to be avoided depending on perceived political affiliations of organisers or families involved.

The trend is so entrenched that Deputy President Kindiki, Governor Waiguru and her Embu counterpart and UDA chairperson, Cicely Mbarire, could not attend the funeral of a senior elder of late Daniel Karaba’s stature last month in Kirinyaga county owing to the prominent role played by PLP leader Martha Karua and the United Opposition leaders in organising the event.

Funerals of prominent personalities of the caliber of Karaba are culturally and commonly used to comfort the bereaved communities but leaders hijack them to advance their supremacy contests.

Ahead of the 2027 General Election, discerning politicians are climbing down their political high horses of being ‘independent-minded’ to align with Gachagua in the quest to guard their political legitimacy and electability.

Jubilee deputy party leader, Jeremiah Kioni, and former Nyandarua Governor, Francis Kimemia, are among those who have paid homage to the former Deputy President at his Nairobi residence.

It is noteworthy both are senior elders in retired President Uhuru Kenyatta’s political axis, and by visiting Gachagua at his Nairobi residence, they effectively acknowledged his emergence as the voice articulating the aspirations of the region.

The two are parliamentary and governor candidates for Ndaragua constituency and Nyandarua County respectively where DCP is gaining traction.

Eala MP and former Kieni MP Kanini Kega and prominent businesswoman and Kirinyaga county governor candidate Wangui Ngirici have also abandoned their former parties to align with the ‘wantam’ movement, a euphemism for the anti-government united opposition movement.

Fence sitting

The bold move by Kang’ata, Kioni, Kimemia and Ngirici marks the countdown to the end of fence-sitting days and ushering in of a season of decision-making and biting the bullet.

Leaders who are in dilemma include a section of sitting MPs who voted for Gachagua’s impeachment, and whose grounds have since turned hostile to UDA and become ‘wantam’ chanting strongholds.

The leaders exhibit a stone-cold, silent demeanor at state-organised events, where they politely give blank stares and give lukewarm two-term chants, even after collecting cash and other incentives, including transport and campaign branding materials, to attend.

A most dramatic indicator of divided loyalties is when locals proudly wear DCP colors and vehemently chant “One-Term” at the slightest excuse, but when they receive two-term caps, t-shirts and scarfs they fold them up and hide them on their way home.

During joint opposition events, majority aspirants give their supporters DCP-branded merchandise.

Kioni, on Tuesday, publicly lamented that the profile of Jubilee and the party’s presidential candidate Dr Fred Matiang’i had declined inside the United Opposition where only DCP and its leader Gachagua seem to enjoy growing support in the region.