The feud between Deputy President William Ruto and Jubilee Secretary General Raphael Tuju is causing a wide rift in the ruling party. Sine the March 9th 2019 handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Opposition Chief Raila Odinga, Jubilee has cracked into two factions. Kieleweke and Tanga Tanga.
Tanga Tanga is allied to William Ruto and Kieleweke leans towards the handshake (Uhuru and Raila). In his every move to ensure he clinches the country’s top seat in 2022, Ruto has turned Tanga Tanga Movement into a campaign machinery dishing money in churches and drumming him support all over the country.
The moves by Tanga Tanga put the ruling party in early campaigns ahead of 2022, instead of service delivery. The opposition, ODM, has on the other hand sunk deep into celebration mode, 15 months after the handshake. They are supporting the handshake and rubber stamping suspect projects.
In fact, ODM and Kieleweke appear more focussed on the President’s big four agenda than the faction led by the deputy president.
The upcoming polls in Kibra also widened the rift. The riling party had promised not to challenge ODM in any by election in their strongholds since the handshake but that’s not Ruto’s stand.
He has gone against the word of the President and defied party Secretary General to field a candidate in Kibra that is considered an ODM strong hold.
To broaden the fact that Ruto who is also the Jubilee Deputy Party leader and Tuju don’t read from the same script. The deputy president has overstepped his powers and called for party elections in early 2020.
That move does not sit pretty with Tuju who argues that that is not the role of the deputy party leader. Tuju emphasized that only National Council has powers to call for party elections.
Ruto is a known schemer and he knows how to play it well. He must have figured that there are individuals in the party leadership who undermines him and that changing the party leadership would be a good step towards realizing his presidential dreams in 2022.
He has over the time accused Tuju of having ties with the opposition and specifically, Raila Odinga. Kenyan politics are tribal and the few men or women who cross to play against their tribes are never trusted as most of them return to play in their tribal outfits.
Former TNA Secretary General Onyango Oloo, changed tune in 2017 and went back to his tribal outfit, ODM. Ruto is highly suspecting the same with Tuju who is now in bed with Odinga, the man he is most likely to face in the ballot in 2022.
