Kenya ex-president Uhuru Kenyatta stares at loss of his party

Kenya’s former ruling Jubilee Party is a shell of its former self. From 172 elected members in the National Assembly in 2017, the political party led by former president Uhuru Kenyatta managed to win less than 30 seats in last year’s election.

To add salt to injury, nearly all of those MPs have since shifted loyalty to current President William Ruto cementing his ruling Kenya Kwanza coalition’s dominance in the 349-member house. Yet, the party has in recent weeks been the theatre of an intriguing political drama featuring Kenya’s most powerful leaders as chief protagonists and antagonists.

Late last month, the former president who has largely kept off politics since handing over power in September 2022, made a rare public appearance at the party office in Nairobi to show solidarity with officials after a group of MPs and stone-throwing youths attempted to forcefully take it over. Mr Kenyatta was seen to be keen to stamp his authority when days later he called a meeting of the party’s delegates on May 22 in Nairobi where a resolution to purge the former ruling party of rebels is likely to be passed.

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But this week, the faction loyal to Ruto announced it had ousted Kenyatta as party leader, stirring a new round of dispute that is likely to find its way to the political parties’ tribunal and the courts in the coming weeks. Six ruling coalition MPs also threatened to have the treasury withhold pension payments to the former president for actively participating in politics.

Scheme to weaken opposition

The reverberations of the Jubilee Party falling-outs are felt beyond its offices though. The opposition Azimio coalition has accused the president of orchestrating the wrangling in its affiliate party as part of an alleged scheme to weaken the opposition and undermine multiparty democracy.

Azimio cited the inclusion of a Jubilee Party MP which it regards as one of its own, on the Kenya Kwanza negotiations team for its recent walk out from a parliament-led bipartisan process initiated by President Ruto and opposition leader Raila Odinga to address issues raised by the opposition during its recent mass protests and ease rising political tensions in the country. But the targeting of Kenyatta for ouster has also once again underlined the deep-seated fears in the ruling coalition about the perceived influence of the former president whose shadow still looms large over the country’s politics seven months after he retired.

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Kenyatta’s influence fading

Under the country’s constitution, he cannot run for president again having served two terms. However, the ex-president retains his position as the chairman of Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Alliance, which sponsored Odinga’s candidature against Ruto in last year’s presidential election. His influence over local politics in the populous Mt Kenya region significantly faded with his retirement and the dethronement of his Jubilee Party as the dominant force by President Ruto’s UDA in the 2022 polls.

Nominated MP Sabina Chege who was installed as the Jubilee party leader after Uhuru Kenyatta’s ouster. PHOTO | DENNIS ONSONGO | NMG

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But the high cost of living and questions increasingly being raised about ethnic balance in President Ruto’s appointments to public offices have handed Kenyatta’s allies plenty of fodder for political propaganda they can use to regroup and mount a comeback.

Kenyatta also packs a considerable economic punch, being the scion of the wealthy family of Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta whose vast business interests include banking, hospitality, real estate, transport and media.

Ruto’s allies have in the past sensationally claimed without giving any evidence that he is an alleged conspiracy to destabilise the current government.