This archive report was first published on 9 July 2021.
William Ruto's New Strategy to Beat the 'System' ¶
Published on July 9, 2021
Deputy President William Ruto has unveiled a five-point strategy aimed at propelling him to State House in next year's elections. The strategy, which is designed to appeal to the majority of the population in informal businesses, is centered around the hustler nation narrative.
According to sources, the DP's camp believes that given the hostility towards his presidential candidacy by State operatives, he needs a convincing victory. To achieve this, his allies are working to replicate opposition Narc candidate Mwai Kibaki's landslide victory in 2002.
Dr. Ruto has now turned to marketing a bottom-up economic model, with a promise of Sh30 billion hustler fund. He declared in Nairobi on Sunday, "This time round we shall form a government that understands the language of the hustlers."
The second plank of the strategy involves pronouncements that leaders in President Kenyatta's administration, governors, and MPs are secretly backing his campaign and would jump ship at the opportune time. Implementation of this strategy is underway with well-choreographed defections, such as the recent one by President Uhuru Kenyatta's ally Kiambu Woman Rep Gathoni wa Muchomba.
Another key aspect of the strategy is ensuring Jubilee is bogged down by his United Democratic Alliance (UDA) in competitions like the ongoing Kiambaa parliamentary by-election campaigns. This is aimed at steadily reinforcing the perception that the ruling party is losing ground.
The DP, who has been fought by the president's men to an extent that he is viewed as an outsider in government, has capitalized on the humiliation to distance himself from the baggage of incumbency. By extension, he is trying to dissociate himself from the Jubilee administration's failures.
As his hustler campaign is gaining traction, the DP has played the victim, protesting that the State machinery is being deployed to block him from the presidency because he does not belong to the dynasties. This is an attempt to win sympathy votes.
By hammering the narrative that he helped ODM leader Raila Odinga to the Prime Minister's post in 2018 and twice assisted President Kenyatta secure the presidency, Dr. Ruto is emboldening the resolve of his supporters, particularly those in Mt. Kenya who feel they owe him.
The DP's camp also hopes that the appellate court will sink the Building Bridges Initiative campaign to amend the Constitution to create more executive positions that their rivals are banking on to cobble a broad-based alliance that Dr. Ruto has sought to portray as an alliance of tribal chiefs.
Belgut MP Nelson Koech said, "President Kenyatta is insisting on imposing his own successor and therefore, like (Mwai) Kibaki, Ruto will likely be a beneficiary of Kenyans who will resist his opponents due to their close association with the incumbent and his way of doing things since the handshake."
UDA chairman Johnson Muthama added, "We defeated Moi by coming together in 2002 and we have set our sight on the people whom we are meeting directly with a view of mobilising them to our side to win by a very wide margin."
