Ruto allies vow to oust DP Gachagua in 2027 elections
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Politicians allied to President Ruto say DP Rigathi Gachagua will not be running mate in the 2027 general elections
Politicians allied to President Ruto say DP Rigathi Gachagua will not be running mate in the 2027 general elections.
A section of Kenya Kwanza politicians have vowed to ensure that Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua will serve for only one term just as he did when he was Mathira MP before President William Ruto picked him as his running mate in the 2022 general elections.
The resolve by allies of President Ruto opens a new battlefield in the two-year-old presidency which is already embroiled in a simmering fallout between Gachagua and Ruto amid reports that the two no longer see eye to eye though they project unity for cameras.
But even revelations came to the limelight over the cause of the fallout between Gachagua and his boss, reports indicated that a Senator from Mt Kenya region has been burning the midnight oil to reconcile the two.
According to a publication by People Daily, the Senator who has been acting as the go-between the President and Gachagua, has organized a delegation of elders from Mt Kenya and Rift Valley to visit the Statehouse once the head of state returns from his USA tour as part of the efforts to reconcile them.
Those in the President Ruto camp accuse the DP of being a bully and arrogant, working with former President Uhuru Kenyatta, being behind the Limuru 3 conference, his one man-one vote-one shilling mantra, divisive and undermining other leaders.
They also claim that the DP has started planting some candidates against MPs perceived not to be in his camp, citing his bromance with former Nyeri town MP Ngunjiri Wambugu whom they claim is out to ensure he returns in 2027.
And the group that is largely oscillating around Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro, claim that Gachagua’s outbursts are divisive and a threat to President Ruto’s re-election in 2027.
Deputy President Gachagua is facing growing hostility within the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) despite his assertion that he is the senior-most leader within the Mt Kenya region to thinly mean that he commands the vote-rich region to support President Ruto.
But Ruto’s allies, some occupying powerful offices are plotting what they are terming as generational change, a move meant to oust Gachagua from the Deputy President’s office in the next general election.
Those behind the scheme are said to be fully out to replace all the old guards, including Gachagua with a youthful lot.
Gachagua first set himself up for the political fights he is facing when, last year in October he claimed that the Kenya Kwanza government is a shareholders’ entity that belongs to the people who voted for it, majorly the central and Rift Valley regions.
Later, Ruto while on a tour to Siaya county, an opposition backyard, disowned Gachagua’s shareholding remarks saying that it is primitive and backward for anybody to imagine that any region of Kenya cannot get development on accounts of how they voted.
The exchanges marked the first disagreement between the two in the public domain.
For the last two months, DP Gachagua has been standing on shaky ground as politicians allied to President Ruto continue to undermine his authority as the second in command.
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Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru is among the new entrants who have joined the anti-Gachagaua bandwagon, after Kiharu MP Ndindi Nyoro and Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria.
Waiguru took to social media to accuse Gachagua of personalising the office of the Deputy President to fend off rivalry from upcoming politicians.
Nyoro, a long-time ally of Ruto since his days as the Deputy President is said to be eyeing the country’s second highest office to become the first leader from Murang’a county to occupy it since independence.
Leaders who spoke on account of anonymity accused the DP of funding the Limuru 3 meeting which turned out to be an anti-Ruto administration movement that also led to the creation of an opposition faction dubbed Haki Coalition.
They claimed that Gachagua and former President Uhuru Kenyatta are now an item after the DP publicly apologized for mud-slinging him and former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta during the last campaigns.
The legislators alleged that Gachagua is finalising the creation of his party which he will ride on heading to the 2027 elections.
The latest move by Gachagua calling for the implementation of the one-man, one-vote one-shilling formula of sharing national revenue has rattled UDA leadership accusing him of instigating politics of ethnicity.
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