Deputy President Kithure Kindiki and Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi wore brave faces as they welcomed the handshake between President William Ruto and ODM leader Raila Odinga after the MoU was signed on Friday.
The reality, however, is that they could soon be holding their offices as mere flower girls in government.
That is because the President appears to be focusing mainly on his re-election agenda for 2027, and he probably thinks both Kindiki and Mudavadi can’t help much in the realisation of his goals.
He has now brought Raila on board, a feat finally achieved after using all available resources. The milestone, however, comes with political consequences for Mudavadi and Kindiki.
Historian Prof Macharia Munene thinks from Mudavadi’s past experience with Raila, he may know that President Ruto may bank on his support, depending on how the unpredictable ODM leader behaves.
“Kindiki is largely irrelevant, and President Ruto is just using him as a pawn in the game. As for Mudavadi, his value will depend on how Raila will play his politics in 2027—if he is going to be on the ballot, as some leaders in ODM are claiming,” says Munene.
A strong anti-Ruto wave is blowing in the Mt Kenya region following Rigathi Gachagua’s ouster as deputy president. The relentless criticism from church leaders and the aftershocks of the revolution mounted against his administration by the youth last year have also not helped inspire confidence in the government.
Ruto has therefore reached out to Raila at a time when Kindiki is struggling to deal with Gachagua’s resurgence in their Mt Kenya backyard. The deputy president also finds himself in choppy waters because his predecessor has announced plans to build a political coalition, which he says will unseat Ruto in 2027.
“We will make whatever sacrifices necessary to ensure William Ruto is a one-term president,” Gachagua declared recently, jolting Kindiki from an apparent slumber. The deputy president has since held a series of meetings at his Karen residence to counter Gachagua.
Scholar and political analyst Dr Barrack Muluka postulates that Kindiki cannot marshal any meaningful support for Ruto in 2027 and that the president knows it. Raila is also now going to make his position even more inconsequential.
“Kindiki should be more worried because he does not have space of his own to manoeuvre. Ruto has to be benevolent to him for his political future,” says Muluka.
Lawyer and political activist Dr George Mathuki also thinks Kindiki should be worried, especially if he saw the jubilation outside KICC when Ruto and Raila were signing the official political cooperation agreement on Friday morning.
“The ecstatic scenes of Raila’s supporters partying outside KICC during the signing ceremony, and the two later addressing what amounted to a political rally, could only have left them wondering what their future portends in this so-called broad-based government,” says Mathuki.
Mudavadi, however, remained upbeat, urging Kenyans to support the MoU so that the country can unite. “The president wants to see progress, and we must support him,” said Mudavadi after the deal was signed.
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He told mourners that the Ruto-Raila deal was done in the same spirit as the one his party, ANC, recently entered into with UDA when it joined the ruling party.
“Let us be wise and solid in this government, make the correct decisions so that we can earn respect and not fall into the trap of spoiling our dignity because people want to show some false popularity,” cautioned Mudavadi.
What he did not disclose is that Raila has insisted on ODM retaining its identity and will be allocated a big share of leadership positions in government, unlike ANC, where only Mudavadi is a key beneficiary.
Political analyst Martin Andati argues that Raila’s entry is going to reshape the structure of government, making the likes of Mudavadi and Kindiki inconsequential both in decision-making and resource distribution.
“They want to make Raila Prime Minister through the backdoor, in a process similar to the National Accord of 2008, when the position and two deputies were introduced into the old constitution through an Act of Parliament,” says Andati.
He argues that although the Act will be illegal because it flouts the structure of the executive in the constitution, the NADCO report will be rushed through Parliament and assented to by the president, leading to legal challenges that may not be resolved before the 2027 presidential elections.
Should the position be entrenched in the constitution, Raila will enjoy all executive privileges in government, including supervising ministers—among them Mudavadi, who will be constrained to the foreign affairs ministry.
His position of Prime Cabinet Secretary has been seriously watered down because almost all functions earlier assigned, such as the supervision of state corporations, are now with the Head of Public Service, Felix Koskei.
Leaders from Western Kenya are now complaining that they are getting the shorter end of the stick, yet the region heavily voted for President Ruto and his government in the last election.
Speaking at a burial ceremony, former Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala wondered why Raila seconded Wycliffe Oparanya to be the Minister for Cooperatives, yet he had proposed to make him the CS for Treasury had the Azimio One Kenya Alliance won the presidency in 2022.
“The people of Western must demand answers. They voted for this government, yet development is given to those who opposed the president. How come Oparanya was promised Treasury and now he is asked to take charge of the Hustler Fund?” asked Malala.
Speaking in the presence of Mudavadi and Speaker Moses Wetang’ula, the former UDA Secretary-General called for strong leadership that can unite the region and tell President Ruto to give Western its due consideration.
Mudavadi has also been faulted for agreeing to fold his ANC party to join UDA because he will now be operating at the whims of President Ruto and other leaders of the ruling party.
Andati argues that Mudavadi is going to be pushed to the periphery of decision-making in government, thus diminishing his chances of succeeding President Ruto in the future.
“Raila is playing centre stage. Mudavadi and Kindiki will find themselves further away from the number two position. His position of Prime Cabinet Secretary will remain a mere title and nothing more,” said Andati.
Analysts say Mudavadi should have learned from Gachagua, who was kicked out of office largely because, together with other leaders from the Mt Kenya region, they were in government without a formal political agreement.
Gachagua has repeatedly assured his supporters that he will never make the mistake of partnering in the future without a formal agreement through a political party that their region controls.
Kindiki will now find himself playing a more obscure role should Raila take the central role as the co-principal in the new nusu mkate (half a loaf) deal with the Kenya Kwanza administration.
The deputy president says he is a loyal assistant to the president: “Strong leaders think of the nation, weak leaders think of division,” he posted on social media while congratulating and praising the political MoU deal between President Ruto and Raila.
Both Mudavadi and Kindiki were Raila’s harshest critics until their boss, Ruto, changed tune recently. They have now quickly changed tune after Ruto embraced the ODM leader following the Gen Z protests in June last year.
“They have to change tune and align themselves with the boss because President Ruto has become very vulnerable. It is also about their own political survival,” says Mathuki.
President Ruto also recently met with his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, in what appeared to be a rapprochement with another foe after the 2022 presidential polls when he narrowly defeated Raila. He appointed three Uhuru allies to the cabinet, but the current status of that relationship is unclear.
The appointment of Uhuru’s nominees into the cabinet did not create a lot of political mileage for President Ruto in the Mt Kenya region.
With the broad-based government expected to be expanded further after the UDA-ODM MoU, Mudavadi and Kindiki will most likely just be throwing glances from the window as Raila calls the shots heading into the future.
