This archive report was first published on 26 August 2020.
Deputy President William Ruto has enlisted the services of former allies of President Uhuru Kenyatta and ODM leader Raila Odinga to boost his chances in the 2022 presidential election.
According to sources, former Senators Johnson Muthama and Boni Khalwale, who played key roles in the 2017 presidential campaign for Nasa flag-bearers, have been tasked with the DP's sensitive offensives.
Mr Muthama and Dr Khalwale sat in the Nasa National Coordinating Committee, the second top-most decision-making organ in the coalition that was also co-chaired by Senator James Orengo.
Dr Ruto is also said to have reached out to President Kenyatta's 2017 election chief agent, Davis Chirchir, a former Energy Cabinet Secretary and electoral commission official.
Mr Chirchir's team is expected to come up with a manifesto and other technical aspects of the campaign, including the ICT infrastructure, a critical aspect in the country's increasingly electronic election.
Other key figures in the DP's campaign include his chief of staff, Ken Osinde, a former Kenyan ambassador to Germany, and his secretary of coordination, Abdul Mwasserah, who served as provincial commissioner in North Eastern and Western provinces.
Mr Muthama was a strong backer of the Raila-Kalonzo ticket in 2013 and 2017, and he is said to have been one of the key financiers of the opposition campaign.
The DP's campaign is focusing on regional networks, with politicians, clergy, and youth leaders deployed to appeal to small focus groups in areas such as the Coast, Western, Gusii, and Maa regions.
Mt Kenya, President Kenyatta's restive political bastion, is the DP's biggest target, and he is spending time and resources wooing the base that voted for the joint ticket of President Kenyatta and himself almost to a man in 2013 and 2017.
“Standing in the way of a Kenyatta succeeding a Kenyatta is Deputy President William Ruto. Contradicting our conventional ethnic sensibilities, William Ruto has boggling and overwhelming support over Uhuru in the Mt Kenya region,” Mr Muthama, Mr Omar, and Dr Khalwale said in a statement in March.
