Former Public Service Cabinet Secretary has revealed new details regarding the high-stakes negotiations that took place just hours before President William Ruto settled on Rigathi Gachagua as his running mate in the 2022 General Election.

Taking to his X account on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, Muturi revealed that he was summoned from Mombasa on the eve of the running mate announcement.

He said that on arrival in the Karen, he found Ruto grappling with a “stalemate” that threatened to derail his campaign.

“On the night before the running mate was picked in 2022, I was in Mombasa when William Ruto called me and asked that we meet in Karen. When I got there, he explained that leaders within UDA had taken the position that the running mate had to come from UDA and from the Mt. Kenya region,” Muturi said.

The ‘UDA Only’ barrier

According to Muturi, the path to the Deputy Presidency was dictated by rigid party optics.

He added that Ruto explained to him that leaders within UDA had taken the position that the running mate should be a member of UDA and from the Mt. Kenya region.

“He also told me that the reason he could not pick me was that I belonged to another party, the Democratic Party, and I could not join UDA. Because of that, the promise he had earlier made to me could not be fulfilled,” Muturi stated.

The case against Kindiki

The most striking part of Muturi’s account involves Ruto’s assessment of Kithure Kindiki.

Despite Kindiki winning the majority vote among UDA’s elected leaders at the time, Ruto remained unconvinced of his political viability.

According to Muturi, Ruto described picking Kindiki as ‘political suicide’, fearing the need to mobilise the vast Mt. Kenya voting bloc.

“However, there was still a stalemate within the team. He explained that although the majority had initially voted for Kindiki, he felt that Kindiki did not seem to understand politics well enough. He even remarked that people in the Mt. Kenya region were asking whether Kindiki was Maasai because he could hardly speak Kikuyu,” Muturi said.

He added, “Eventually, he told me he had made up his mind that Rigathi Gachagua would be the running mate because picking Kindiki would have been political suicide. It would have cost us votes.”

Gachagua’s Removal

Rigathi Gachagua was removed from office in October 2024 after he was impeached in a historic vote in the country’s Senate on Thursday night.

He became the first deputy president to be removed from office in this way since impeachment was introduced in Kenya’s 2010 constitution.

Gachagua faced 11 charges, including insubordination to the president, inciting ethnic violence, corruption, undermining government, and money laundering, among others.