Why Moi and Ruto have not met in private since Jubilee took over

By SUNDAY NATION REPORTER

Deputy President William Ruto ( left) and Baringo Senator Gideon Moi during the Kimalel Baringo County Goat Auction in the Baringo County on December 20, 2014. Deputy President William Ruto has not held a one-on-one meeting with retired President Daniel Moi one and half years since the Jubilee government came to power. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA |  NATION MEDIA GROUP

In Summary

• In that period, President Uhuru Kenyatta has met the former President in private at least four times, with the latest meeting taking place last month.
• In what has become their style of doing business, President Kenyatta and his deputy try as much as they can to appear together in official functions or in meetings bearing political significance.
• The “circumstances” in question, he said, is Mr Ruto’s current position against Mr Moi’s preferred plan for his son, Baringo Senator Gideon Moi as the Rift Valley political kingpin.
• But the parting of ways between Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga seems to have revived the Mois’ and Kanu’s fortunes nationally and more so in Rift Valley. 

Deputy President William Ruto has not held a one-on-one meeting with retired President Daniel Moi one and half years since the Jubilee government came to power.

This, analysts say, could be an indication of the cold relationship between the two leaders who come from the same political region.

In that period, President Uhuru Kenyatta has met the former President in private at least four times, with the latest meeting taking place last month.

Allies of the retired President and the Deputy President say that decade-long competing political interests could be the reason behind the frosty relationship between the two. 

On April 3, 2013, while he was President-elect, Mr Kenyatta met Mr Moi at his home in Kabarak ahead of his swearing in on April 9.

POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE

That meeting was significant because President Moi did not support the Jubilee team of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto during the March 4 General Elections, throwing his weight instead behind Amani Coalition leader Musalia Mudavadi. Kanu was part of the coalition.

It was, therefore, very telling that one of the first persons Mr Kenyatta paid a visit was the former President – the man who first picked him for the top seat a decade ago and unsuccessfully supported him.

In what has become their style of doing business, President Kenyatta and his deputy try as much as they can to appear together in official functions or in meetings bearing political significance.

But in that meeting in April, last year, the DP-elect was conspicuously absent, much unlike the case when he and President Kenyatta jointly paid a visit to former President Mwai Kibaki in October, this year, at his home in Nyeri.

Two months after the April meeting, Mr Moi and President Kenyatta once again met in Kabarak in Nakuru for what they said were private talks. This was followed by another meeting in August last year at State House, Nairobi, to discuss regional peace among other issues.

RIFT VALLEY POLITICS
This was one of the few occasions that Moi has visited State House since his retirement in 2002. During President Kibaki’s 10-year rule, Mr Moi visited State House only four times.

Finally, last month, Mr Moi and President Kenyatta held private talks at the former’s Kabarak home.

President Kenyatta later presided over Kabarak University’s 10th graduation ceremony in which he was conferred an honorary degree.

The DP has been missing in all these functions and in most public functions in which Mr Moi has been present. But conspicuously, they shared a platform last year at the relaunch of the Kimalel goat auction in Baringo.

Mr Ruto led Saturday’s goat auction in which Mr Moi was represented by Baringo Senator and son, Gideon. Is this just sheer coincidence or is it by design?

It is not known precisely why the two leaders have never met. However, a long-time friend of Mr Moi said “Mzee will never accede to such a meeting considering the current circumstances.”

The friend, who also maintains strong ties with Mr Ruto, asked to speak freely on the background so as not to jeopardise the good relations he enjoys with both leaders. 

The “circumstances” in question, he said, is Mr Ruto’s current position against Mr Moi’s preferred plan for his son, Baringo Senator Gideon Moi as the Rift Valley political kingpin.

HAPPY AND SAD

The retired President held the Rift Valley in his grip for decades before the young Ruto wrested it away from him at the 2007 General Election.

“The election of Jubilee made Moi both sad and happy. He was happy because the man he picked for the presidency in 2002 was finally elected to office. To him, it was a vindication of his decision which many thought it was unwise at that moment.

However, it made him sad that Uhuru’s deputy was Ruto. That certainly was not in his game plan. Mzee had hoped that Gideon would have been Uhuru’s deputy and someday, as the country’s politics evolved, President.

It would have completed an incredible, fairytale of two families running the country for years. But all his plans are now asunder, thanks to Ruto,” he said.

Our source said the political developments over the past decade that led to rise of Mr Ruto’s political clout at the expense of the Mois have considerably strained the relationship between the two leaders.

“They hardly see eye to eye on almost anything. To Mzee, the DP is an ingrate whom he nurtured politically, only for him to turn against him and his family.

More than anyone else, Mzee holds Ruto responsible for his family’s dwindling political fortunes nationally and in Rift Valley,” said the former powerful Kanu operative.

RELATIONSHIP INTACT
But Mr Moi’s Press secretary Lee Njiru told Sunday Nation that only Mr Moi and the Deputy President are in a position to competently state the position of their camaraderie.

“That is not for an outsider to say because people’s hearts and preferences are personal issues. It is not opportune or prudent for somebody else to talk about their love or sympathy for one another, it is only them who can comment on this- two adults who are all still alive and well,” he said.

Mr Njiru added that he has never noticed any sign that political relationship between the two has gone to the south.

But people around Mr Ruto say the duo has met in public more than once, saying whoever was reading so much in this was up to no good.

Mr Njiru’s counterpart in Mr Ruto’s office, David Mugonyi, insists all is well between the DP and the former Head of State.

“The Deputy President respects former President Moi and they have a cordial relationship. This is something he has repeatedly said and I wonder what the drive is,” Mr Mugonyi said.

For the better part of the last 10 years, Mr Moi and Mr Ruto have pursued divergent political goals that have often seen them cross paths.

The last time they pursued similar interests was during the 2005 referendum when Kanu joined hands with Narc rebel MPs to hand the government side a resounding defeat.

EFFORT IN FUTILITY
Soon after this, the two went their separate ways. The Kalenjin nation and Mr Ruto gravitated towards the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) that rose out of the referendum campaigns.

Mr Moi stridently opposed the creation of ODM and its influence in Rift Valley, but come the 2007 General Election, it would prove an effort in futility.

In 2007, under the ODM banner, a group of ex-Kanu stalwarts led by Sally Koskei, Henry Kosgey and Mr Ruto led a revolution that vanquished Mr Moi’s Kanu in Kalenjinland.

In what is arguably one of his worst personal humiliations since Mr Kenyatta’s defeat in 2002, three of Mr Moi’s sons suffered crushing defeats in the 2007 parliamentary elections.

Mr Gideon Moi lost Baringo Central seat formerly held by his father for decades; former rally driver Jonathan Moi was crushed in Eldama Ravine and Raymond Moi lost the Rongai seat.

For the first time since the 1950’s when Mr Moi joined politics representing Rift Valley in the colonial Legislative Council (Legco), the Moi family was out of elective politics.

“What made these defeats most galling to Mzee was that the people leading the onslaught against him were people he had nurtured politically and economically. Some he had picked from obscure jobs in government and molded them to be the people they were,” said the friend.

Worse still for Mr Moi, these former lieutenants were waging this campaign against him on behalf of a man he had little respect for politically, Mr Raila Odinga.

CEDED TO RUTO
Mr Odinga led a group of Kanu rebel MPs in rejecting Mr Kenyatta as then President Moi’s chosen heir in 2002. The rebels later formed the Liberal Democratic Party, which formed a coalition with Mr Mwai Kibaki’s National Alliance of Kenya party to win the elections.

And in 2007, Mr Odinga’s ODM was sounding the death knell for Kanu in Kalenjinland.

“For the first time in a long time, Mr Moi was not the master of his destiny and his opponents seemed to have the upper hand,” said the ally.

Mr Moi stuck with President Kibaki in the highly disputed re-election bid against Mr Odinga. Back then, Mr Kenyatta, then Kanu chairman and the Leader of Opposition in Parliament, abandoned the ODM brigade and threw his weight behind the incumbent.

Despite the widely discredited results, Mr Moi had bested his two opponents, Mr Odinga and Mr Ruto.

But that was pyrrhic victory at best. When the Grand Coalition Government was formed, Mr Ruto became an influential Cabinet minister and the main man in Rift Valley.

But our source is quick to absolve Mr Ruto of accusations that he willingly upstaged President Moi. He contends that Mr Moi’s heir apparent in Kalenjinland, his son Gideon, was in no position to stamp his authority and slowly if inadvertently ceded his ground to Mr Ruto.

RUTO'S REVOLT
Mr Ruto moved quickly to fill the power vacuum in Rift Valley. As a Cabinet minister, he traversed the breadth and length of Kalenjinland consolidating his support.

After 2007, Mr Ruto led a revolt within ODM which raised his profile and cemented his position as the de facto leader of the Kalenjin nation.

“He wanted it to be known that it was only through him, and not any other person, that the Kalenjins could be approached for political purposes. He succeeded in doing this exemplarily.

He finished Raila and his cohorts in Rift Valley,” said a senator from Rift Valley who is also a close ally of the DP.

But the parting of ways between Mr Ruto and Mr Odinga seems to have revived the Mois’ and Kanu’s fortunes nationally and more so in Rift Valley.

After splitting from ODM, Mr Ruto went ahead and created a juggernaut in the form of the United Republican Party that went in to a coalition with Mr Kenyatta’s The National Alliance Party.

URP swept the boards in Rift Valley, producing far more elected leaders than any other party in that region. But despite this, the Moi family bounced back to national politics in a big way.

Mr Gideon Moi was elected the Baringo Senator and Raymond Moi the MP for Rongai on Kanu tickets. Kanu also produced the Senator of West Pokot County John Lonyagopuo and several MPs.