Azimio, KKA brace for bruising battle

Campaigns for the August 9 presidential election promise to be a bare-knuckled bruising race, with the two contesting sides stopping at nothing to secure victory.

With President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga ganging up against Deputy President William Ruto, both sides are unleashing their immense influence, substantial resources and connections in the cutthroat competition.

An incumbent determined to take charge of his succession, an aggressive and moneyed Deputy President, who believes he has been betrayed, and a veteran opposition leader enjoying the support of the State, make for high-voltage politics that have put security agencies on the tenterhooks.

Former Limuru MP George Nyanja says Kenyans should expect brutal campaigns because the players are “not ordinary competitors.”

Nyanja predicts that the official campaign period is likely to be turned into “a night of the long knives” where harsh words are exchanged as both camps utilise everything at their disposal to vanquish the other.

“The DP is here with his money and influence and is in government. Uhuru will bring his influence, money and the State machinery to campaign for Raila who is also influential, equally wealthy and connected, both locally and internationally. It will not be an ordinary campaign,” he said.

Uhuru has teamed up with Raila to assemble a war chest, supplemented by the State machinery, to face his deputy, a billionaire with close to 30-year political experience.

Ruto, on the other hand, is operating a well-oiled campaign machine to ensure nothing short of victory on August 9.

Other than the endorsement by Uhuru, Raila has created an international network that supports his candidature.

Ruto’s current tour of the United States and the United Kingdom is also seen as part of the efforts to build his international network.

Thanks to their real or perceived strengths, both Ruto and Raila campaigns are acting as if they have already won the race, a  position that other leaders and pundits warn is dangerous.

“In politics winning before the main event is held may lead to disaster,” Narc Kenya leader Martha Karua says.

Besides publicly campaigning against Ruto, whom he has branded corrupt, dishonest, disrespectful, Uhuru has done what was previously unthinkable by cobbling up an alliance to support an opposition candidate.

Uhuru’s move has not only angered his deputy – who backed him in the last two elections –  but has also left him with a feeling of betrayal.

Brutal attack

While then outgoing President Daniel Arap Moi endorsed and campaigned for Uhuru in the 2002 election against Mwai Kibaki, this will be the first time an incumbent is backing his perennial arch-rival and opposition leader to succeed him.

Speaking at Sagana State Lodge two weeks ago, Uhuru declared he would back Raila and that he was officially hitting the ground to campaign for him.

He used the Sagana meeting, which brought together grassroots leaders from the Mt Kenya region, to launch a brutal attack on the DP whom he said was unsuitable to lead the country.

The President was categorical that he wished to hand over power to Raila, saying that Ruto, whom he had in 2013 promised to support at the end of his two terms, was too risky for the country.

While announcing his support for Raila, Uhuru stated: “I heard someone saying there is nowhere in the world where the government unites with and supports the opposition. Kenya will be an example.”

Not to leave anything to chance, Uhuru has whipped senior government officials, including Cabinet Secretaries and Principal Secretaries, to campaign for Raila.

Although he now operates like an outsider, there is little doubt that Ruto has built elaborate networks in government in the last decade and has sympathisers and informers within.

On Monday, Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua, who is one of the DP’s close allies, claimed they have sympathisers in the National Intelligence Service and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations who feed them with information on any plots against Ruto’s presidential ambitions.

Dr Richard Bosire, a Political Science lecturer at the University of Nairobi says the country is dealing with two powerful competitors who have State links, an agitated President who believes his deputy is out to soil his legacy and a deputy who is unhappy about alleged betrayal.

Bosire said both Ruto and Raila are powerful because they are close to the government and therefore have access to State machinery.

“The DP behaves as if the presidency belongs to him. That is why he keeps calling Raila a project. He is bitter because he thinks he deserves Uhuru’s support. On the other hand, Raila believes that if he does not make it this time around, he should just forget the presidency. Stakes are very high and people will spare no efforts to get what they want,” Bosire says.

That both sides of the now irreparably split ruling Jubilee are threatening to unmask the other is one more indication that the campaigns will be nasty.

On Monday, Gachagua declared that, if Uhuru will expose Ruto’s skeletons, they will also reveal the secrets of the President and his allies.

“We have for a long time avoided responding to the President but unfortunately, he has reduced himself to a campaign manager of Raila Odinga. He will be answered in that capacity. He has decided to bring himself into the mud. The campaign period is a muddy one and he will be muddied,” he said.

The two close allies-turned foes have also progressively been attacking each other directly.

Police recruitment

When Uhuru accused his deputy of being a ghost worker who thinks governance is done “on top of cars”, Ruto fired back: “You practice theories in offices but you do it practically in the field, sometimes on top of cars.”

The government, according to sources is anticipating a “hotly contested presidential campaign”, with all agencies with roles to play in the polls, such as NIS, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) and the police already on high alert.

Perhaps as an indication of how the government was treating the campaigns seriously, Interior Ministry has requested an additional Sh9 billion for its operations including election preparedness and recruitment of officers in April.

Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho, while appearing before a parliamentary committee three weeks ago, said the ministry needs Sh5.2 billion to recruit additional 5,000 officers.

In January, Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance wrote to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over what it claimed was “State-sponsored” violence aimed at frustrating its leader’s presidential ambitions.

Ruto has also accused “the system” or “the deep State” of erecting roadblocks on his journey to State House. The scheme, he claims, includes plans to steal his victory.

He repeated the rigging claims while he was in the United States last week.