Nyeri Town MP, Ngunjiri Wambugu's war with Deputy President William Ruto has escalated after the legislator alleged that the DP was treading dangerous ground in Mount Kenya region.
The first-time MP took to social media on Thursday, October 10, to tear into Ruto's influence on voters, claiming that the DP did not contribute anything significant towards President Uhuru Kenyatta's ascending to the presidency.
According to Wambugu, 2017 election results had proven that Ruto's run for the presidency in 2022 would not be viable.
"If you pick the voter register and results of the 2017 elections you will realize that the Mt Kenya region has a united vote bloc of 6.5 Million registered voters.
"In the 2017 elections, Uhuru mobilised a total of 4.8M votes from this bloc as it is his stronghold. Ruto mobilised 1.3M votes from the RV Kalenjin vote bloc. The total votes from the two strongholds were 6.1M votes," Wambugu posted on Facebook.
He further went on to state that Ruto had a herculean task ahead of him in his bid for the presidency, adding that the DP had realised his shortcomings and was working against them.
"Ruto wants to be the President in 2022. He starts off with 1.5M votes from his strongholds. He needs the 4.5M votes from Mt Kenya to have a head-start over anyone else competing with him. This is why he has made a lot more campaign trips to the Mt. Kenya region than to any other region," Wambugu opined.
The political scientist went on to question what Ruto had to offer to Mount Kenya after the region assisted him to be DP, stating that any move Ruto was making in Kenyatta's backyard could backfire on him.
"But Ruto has a problem. In 2013 and 2017 he used his 1.5M votes to negotiate for the DP post and 50% of Government of Kenya for himself and his allies. What can he offer Mt. Kenya for their 4.5M votes?
"He could give them the DP and 50 per cent of GOK like he got - as unfair as that is to them considering his votes were one-third of theirs. However, he knows that if he does that he the rest of the country will gang up against him for perpetuating a 60-yr Kikuyu-Kalenjin alliance for the Presidency. And he will lose in 2022.
"If he doesn’t offer Mt Kenya something substantive in his post-2022 government they will not support him. In fact, they will support someone else," Ngunjiri warned.
The Kieleweke-allied MP went on to state that Mount Kenya had a major influence on any election and any candidate it supported would emerge victorious.
"The problem is that Ruto knows that with 4.5M votes anyone Mt Kenya supports - as long as it’s not one of them - will beat anyone else running in 2022 hands down; including Ruto himself," he asserted.
Ngunjiri further insisted that Ruto had two options concerning the region.
One, he had to invite the region to ‘repay’ the debt they owed him for supporting Kenyatta in 2013 and 2017. He would have to woo Mt Kenya not to ask for anything in return.
"However, this idea failed to sell despite some efforts immediately after the 2017 elections. They have already said ‘hatuna deni’ (We do not owe anyone). They have publicly stated that they know he did not support their son for anything, so they cannot support him for anything. So this option will not work," Ngunjiri asserted.
The second option would be to split the Mt Kenya vote bloc. He can split off the Kikuyu into one bloc; the Meru and Embu into another; Kiambu and Nyeri into a 3rd bloc; and Muranga, Nyandarua and Kirinyaga into a fourth bloc (this fourth bloc will be split off from their central brothers by being told that they haven’t produced a president so they should strategise separately).
"This option splits the 4.5 million votes into at least 4 smaller blocs of around 1 million votes each. Mount Kenya will then be split evenly between the top four presidential candidates; of which one will be Ruto.
"This will also completely neutralise the region’s capacity to negotiate for anything jointly in the post-2022 government or to affect that election in any meaningful way in favour or against, any candidate - including Ruto himself," Ngunjiri analysed.
