For a man whose word is law in his country, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has always appeared baffled at neighbouring Kenya’s querulous politics.
During his latest visit to Kenya on August 27, Museveni couldn’t resist the urge to comment on local politics, praising President William Ruto and Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua for demonstrating unity in their support for former prime minister Raila Odinga’s candidature for the African Union Commission (AUC) chairman.
“I’m very happy that Ruto and Gachagua are working together,” said Museveni in his speech during the launch ceremony for Odinga’s AUC candidature at State House, Nairobi.
The ceremony was attended by four other East African heads of state.
Their arrival in Nairobi came amid a thawing of relationship between the Kenyan president and his deputy after an ugly public falling-out in which Gachagua accused the intelligence chief of plotting to falsely implicate him and former president Uhuru Kenyatta in sponsoring the wave of anti-government protests between June and July.
As it turned out, the State House show was a lull before another political storm.
In recent days, Gachagua has been on the receiving end of attacks by Ruto’s political allies from the Mt Kenya region, who accuse the deputy president of risking local development projects by allegedly fomenting rebellion in government.
On Thursday, more than 40 MPs representing constituencies in Mt Kenya issued a statement renouncing their loyalty to Gachagua and declaring allegiance to his regional political rival, the Interior Minister Prof Kithure Kindiki.
The deputy president, who is believed to hold presidential ambitions of his own, has been regarded as the region’s political spokesman by virtue of his holding the second highest office in government.
He has in the past sought to play down any threat to his political influence arising from his unpopularity among elected local leaders, saying they are “not listening to the ground;” that they are out of touch with the electorate.
But in Prof Kindiki, a former senator and Senate Deputy Speaker, Gachagua is up against a smooth political operator capable of causing him problems in his bid to take control of the region’s politics following the retirement of Mr Kenyatta.
In addition to being popular with MPs in the president’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party, the soft-spoken law scholar also boasts considerable support in at least three counties whose residents feel aggrieved over being marginalised from the region’s mainstream power politics.
And the 52-year-old Interior minister needs no motivation to take on the deputy president after the UDA running mate election debacle in 2022.
Then candidate Ruto is reported to have prevailed on Prof Kindiki to give up the running mate seat in favour of Gachagua despite the former having got the support of the MPs.
But in a not-so-strange turn of fortune, the deputy president will most likely find himself increasingly isolated in the Ruto administration with the elevation of Prof Kindiki’s profile as the new enforcer in government.
There are already signs that the president could be planning to hand Prof Kindiki an expanded role in government, echoing the power shifts in the previous administration of Uhuru Kenyatta when then Interior minister Fred Matiang’i was seen to overshadow then Deputy President Ruto.
This week, for instance, the Interior minister was seen to take a more prominent role in the activities of the Nairobi Rivers Commission set up in 2022 to reclaim and rehabilitate the city’s riparian reserves, which have been encroached on by unplanned settlements.
The deputy president would normally be involved in overseeing the implementation of the environmental restoration programmes, including evictions that will affect about 40,000 families.
