{UAH} Edmund/Pojim/WBK: Cough cough!!! Long knives out for William Ruto in 2022 race | The Star, Kenya
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Long knives out for William Ruto in 2022 race
WE are back again to the sensitive succession politics of 2022.
It is hard to ignore this subject because it keeps rearing its ugly head every time it is kicked under the carpet. It is the real elephant in the room for the TNA and URP mandarins.
Meantime, let's hear it for the outspoken Kiambu county boss William Kabogo for always moving to the front of the queue to tell us what those far back in the queue have been saying.
For those behind the news, the Governor of Kiambu told a public meeting on the Muiri Coffee Estate in his county that Central will not vote automatically for the Deputy President in 2022. And poor William Ruto still thinks they are all solidly behind him!
Kabogo was as sober as the Pope when he uttered these remarks. And, for effect, he reiterated that the Uhuru Succession MoU has to be redrawn so that the DP's presidential ambitions are cast to the four winds.
This man Kabogo is an insider in the ruling Jubilee coalition and when he says something touching on the coalition partners, you better believe it.
Kabogo was not bluffing. The grapevine says that the crème de la crème of Mount Kenya politics recently met secretly "to chart" the way forward for the region's political interests after Uhuru leaves office in 2022.
They are so cocksure the Fourth President of Kenya will win next year's polls! Their real worry lies in the succession politics of 2022: They fear the Presidency will escape the House of Mumbi.
Governor Kabogo has not withdrawn his words even after a handful of vocal Mt Kenya MPs (all Kikuyus) splashed cold water on them.
They called Kabogo's bluff but this did not change the fact that what the subject of their vitriol uttered is the truth.
Kabogo is no fool: He can't just wake up one day and decide to tell the world about a dream he had overnight. No. This politician plays in a league that his detractors can only dream of. He has more information collected from Jubilee's corridors of power than his critics could ever imagine.
To Rift Valley politicians, this piece of information is no news; they are hearing it for the umpteenth time. They know it is true and that is why they can't waste their precious time holding press conferences to attack the source of the news.
To them, Kabogo is just a messenger, why should they kill the messenger and yet his role was just to deliver the message?
It is no secret that the political line-up for the post-Uhuru Jubilee coalition is being cooked in a smoky room somewhere. The problem is that the story is too hot to keep under lock and key until the appropriate time. This is why Kabogo let the cat out recently and in the process rattled the rest of such "secret" keepers of the M t Kenya flame as Kiharu MP Irungu Kang'ata , Benson Mutura (Makadara), Kiragu Chege (Limuru), Alice Ng'ang'a (Kiambu Woman Rep) and Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung'wa.
I understand the MPs and other influential figures from the Kikuyu-speaking Central region are mad at Kabogo for letting out their secret so early. The appropriate time would have been when Ruto is least expecting a stab in the back.
President Daniel arap Moi tasted the bitter betrayal brewed by the same county's political mafia in the years just before Jomo Kenyatta's demise in 1978.
It took the hand of God to put Moi in State House. History may repeat itself soon, but the Kalenjin-speaking Rift Valley will not develop chikunykunya, or mad cow disease, if Uhuru follows in the footsteps of his predecessors in throwing the MoU between him and Ruto into the dumpsite where political MoUs go to die.
Two things are for sure: The night of the long knives is approaching faster than anyone can shout "Ruto watch out!"
And the death of this MoU will foreclose any future political marriage between the two communities.
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