Tit for Tat: Inside Kenya’s politics of revenge

As Eldoret North MP, William Samoei Ruto in 2003 led a protest of legislators allied to the then-ruling party, Kanu, in condemning the Mwai Kibaki government for what he termed harassment of retired President Daniel arap Moi. That remonstration is apparently being re-played two decades later, but this time round with Dr Ruto as the President.



Ruto, who was interestingly on the same side of the political divide as Uhuru Kenyatta when they publicly attacked Kibaki, is today viewed by some as the chief tormentor of the former President. Kenyatta is similarly viewed as having tormented Ruto at a most delicate time when the latter needed help with pushing through his bid for the presidency. 



Acknowledging that relations between Kenyatta and Ruto were hostile in the run-up to last year’s General Election, political affairs commentator Prof Macharia Munene argues that the President should nonetheless treat his office with respect: “We know that some really bad things happened between the two men but there are honourable ways of handling this. Kibaki, for instance, was offended in an even more pronounced manner by the Moi administration, but he was not vengeful.”







Public defence of Moi in 2003 was prompted by two factors: a threat by senior officials in the Kibaki administration to bring the old man to justice over alleged misdeeds carried out during his 24-year rule, and a clause in a new Presidential Retirement Bill barring beneficiaries of the pension scheme from participating in politics.



In an interview with the Sunday Nation on November 30, 2021, Kiraitu Murungi, who was then Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, confessed that his office, owing to the push from civil society, had drafted several charges against Moi and that there was immense pressure for his arrest. 



There was also a move to kick the old man out of his Kabarnet Gardens house in Nairobi, which was initially meant to serve as the official vice-presidential residence. Ruto warned of a country-wide riot in the event of the former President’s arrest, while Kenyatta, who was Leader of the Official Opposition, demanded respect for Moi: “As a country, our future will be determined by how we recognise and treat our past leaders.”



Murungi reports that President Kibaki quickly calmed the situation when he dissuaded his enthusiastic ministers from pushing for Moi’s arrest and further directed them to process a title deed for the Kabarnet Gardens property in Moi’s name and hand it over to him. Moi was also given the full retirement package due to him.



Kenyatta gave Kibaki similar treatment upon assuming power but did not do the same for Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, who had contested against him in the 2013 polls. The Kenyatta-Ruto axis maintained that Raila and Musyoka would only enjoy their retirement packages and related perks upon formal retirement from politics.



Senior Counsel John Khaminwa attributes the friction between Ruto and Kenyatta to political vendetta – a product of the dirty game of politics. Regretting the current drama between the friends-turned-foes, the seasoned lawyer notes that the Constitution is supreme and that any dispute, no matter its magnitude, can be sorted out by institutions established by the government.



Then-President Uhuru Kenyatta chats with his deputy, William Ruto, during the launch of the National Defence Policy and Gender Policy documents at the National Defence College, Karen, on May 3, 2017. /Courtesy



He is particularly irked by reports of alleged harassment of former First Lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta, wife of founding President Jomo Kenyatta and mother of the fourth President, Uhuru. Khaminwa cites Article 57 of the 2010 Constitution, which demands of the State to set out measures to ensure respect and the rights of older members of society.



According to the said Constitutional provision, the State should ensure that senior citizens “fully participate in the affairs of society, pursue their personal development, live in dignity and respect, are free from abuse, and receive reasonable care and assistance from their family and the State”.



Khaminwa, who has over the decades distinguished himself as an avid crusader for democracy and the rule of law, points out that political vendetta is not a new phenomenon. Relatives, allies and in some cases even tribesmen of an outgoing President are almost always treated as political orphans, unceremoniously hounded out of government and subjected to open hostility.



Unlike the melodramatic way in which the current government is publicly targeting Kenyatta and his associates over the question of tax payment, the pressure exerted on allies and kin of a President who has left office has previously happened quietly and behind the scenes, with little chest thumping or drama.  



Khaminwa remembers representing former Cabinet Minister Njenga Karume and two or three nieces of the late Jomo Kenyatta in separate court cases just a couple of months after the death of the founding President on August 22, 1978. Noting that many other loyalists of the senior Kenyatta were subjected to exclusion and legal suits at the time, the lawyer is highly convinced that his clients were victims of power change-over. Karume, for instance, was one of the authors of the so-called “Change The Constitution Movement” that in the mid-1970s sought to bar a sitting Vice-President from automatically replacing the President in the event of the demise of the office holder. Moi was the V-P at the time and the aging Kenyatta was in ill health – a factor that clearly gave away the intentions of the former Kiambaa MP and his then Nakuru North counterpart, Kihika Kimani.



Warm relations



Munene, who teaches History and International Relations at the United States International University-Kenya, observes that presidents exiting office have previously had warm relations with their successors. Upon assuming office in 1978, for instance, Moi openly embraced his predecessor by proclaiming publicly that he would “fuata nyayo (follow the footsteps)” of the late President. 



The historian recalls that Kibaki similarly covered up for Moi, despite the fact that he came to power courtesy of an anti-Moi wave that swept aside his preferred successor, Uhuru Kenyatta.



“The same is true of Uhuru, who in 2013 replaced Kibaki, his fiercest challenger for the Presidency ten years earlier. Only Ruto has demonstrated open hostility towards a predecessor by antagonising the Jubilee party leader,” says Munene. 



The political analyst attributes the turn of events to “two bad situations”. The first is the former President’s apparent active role in the affairs of his Jubilee Party and the opposition. Unlike his predecessor, who quit active party politics upon leaving office, Munene opines that Kenyatta’s presence on the political scene exposes him to “inevitable friction” with Ruto. 



Former presidents Daniel arap Moi (right) and Mwai Kibaki in Muthaiga on May 4, 2016. Public defence of Moi in 2003 was prompted by two factors: a threat by senior officials in the Kibaki administration to bring the old man to justice over alleged misdeeds carried out during his 24-year rule, and a clause in the Presidential Retirement Bill barring beneficiaries of the pension scheme from participating in politics. /Courtesy



The second “bad situation”, according to Munene, is the vendetta mission seemingly being perpetuated by the Office of the President – the President and his deputy – to avenge their “mistreatment at the hands of Kenyatta”. Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, in particular, is on record with claims that the former President “weaponised the war against corruption by targeting supporters of Ruto”. Pundits believe this is partly the reason why the current administration appears to be acting hard on the Kenyatta family and its political allies.



Kenyan problem



Hostility between the outgoing and incoming presidents is not solely a Kenyan problem. After replacing Kenneth Kaunda as Zambia’s President in 1991, for instance, President Fredrick Chiluba engaged in endless feuds over governance and alleged corruption in the central African nation, with Kaunda harassed several times and top leaders of his party arrested on charges of treason.



But the most curious of these hostilities, which shocked the world was the charge by Chiluba’s government that the founding father of Zambia and the country’s President for 27 years was Malawian. Chiluba executed the move two years into office after his predecessor announced plans to run for the presidency in the following elections.



High-ranking officials of Chiluba’s Movement for Multiparty Democracy quickly took the matter to court and earned a ruling declaring Kaunda stateless. According to the ruling, the former President was not a Zambian citizen under the Constitution because his parents were from the former British Nyasaland, now called Malawi. The ruling ultimately locked Kaunda out of future presidential contests.



Another uneasy development was witnessed in the United States of America, where 45th President Donald Trump tried to reverse most policies on immigration, taxation and health initiated by his predecessor, Barrack Obama, including the famed Obamacare health reform law. For the four years of his rule, the Republican leader made his Democratic predecessor a common target of his tirades.



Back home, Khaminwa is disturbed about the timing of the high-profile hostilities – when the country is experiencing hard economic times: “Let us unite at this time because divisions will hurt us even more. Let us avoid the perception that certain families or individuals are being targeted. The so-called big families are our very own people. They are members of this Kenyan society.”



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