Ndegwa Njiru berates Ruto for claiming he will elections with 3M margin
By Aloys Michael, February 4, 2026Political analyst and advocate Ndegwa Njiru has scoffed at President William Ruto’s confidence of securing a three-million-vote victory margin in the 2027 General Election, arguing that the Head of State’s remarks betray anxiety rather than strength.
Speaking during an interview on a local radio station on Wednesday, February 4, 2026, he questioned both the logic and legitimacy behind Ruto’s repeated assertions that a looming Orange Democratic Movement and United Democratic Alliance (ODM–UDA) political arrangement would hand him a landslide win against the opposition.
According to Njiru, the President’s projections raise fundamental questions about electoral integrity and political cohesion within the emerging broad-based government.
“Mr William Ruto understands that he cannot win his elections free, fair and square. He had to come up with the mechanisms of trying to steal the elections,” Njiru said.
Njiru took issue with what he described as exaggerated and shifting victory margins cited by the President in public forums, arguing that constantly inflating expected vote margins, from one vote to millions, signals an attempt to pre-emptively legitimise a disputed outcome.
“He is going to go home one vote, two votes, three million votes, five million votes, ten million votes, even twelve million votes cast out of thirty million votes cast. When I stop and ask myself, where is this three million votes coming from?” he posed.
Ruto exuded confidence
The remarks come against the backdrop of President Ruto’s own declaration that he is targeting a two-to-three-million-vote margin in 2027, anchored on a possible coalition between his UDA and ODM.
Speaking on Monday, January 26, 2026, at State House, Nairobi, during a UDA National Governing Council meeting, Ruto said the proposed coalition is aimed at uniting the country and avoiding the razor-thin margins that characterised the 2022 presidential race.
“In the coming election, we want to win by a margin of between two and three million so that we unite the country and walk together,” Ruto said.
“In the last election, we won by a margin of 200,000. There’s justification for us to consolidate the country into one.”
Ruto defended the broad-based government arrangement, saying it has already yielded results, singling out Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi and other ODM figures for praise. He further revealed that talks are ongoing to formalise a coalition with ODM ahead of 2027.
However, Njiru dismissed the President’s justification, arguing that the ODM-UDA rapprochement is riddled with internal contradictions and resistance.
“His justification is that now he is with ODM, and he is going to win this election. But you can see the wars in ODM and the struggle currently existing; some individuals want to disentangle themselves from the capture, others feel they need to stay,” he said.
Njiru warned that political absorption does not automatically translate into voter transfer, noting that party grassroots remain fractured and unpredictable, arguing that the President’s emphasis on numbers, rather than policy credibility, reflects unease about public sentiment.
Ruto, on his part, has doubled down on strengthening UDA’s internal machinery, ordering a repeat of grassroots elections in polling centres with low turnout and insisting that future party nominations will be tightly controlled by the party.
“Any polling centre where fewer than 50 people voted, we repeat. All nominations will be determined by the party,” the UDA boss said.
However, to Njiru, such moves, combined with bold victory projections, signal an administration already bracing for a contested election.