News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In Kericho Town.
IF the Eldoret North MP William Samoei Ruto’s pipe dream of stepping into the shoes of the retire President Daniel Arap Moi by anointing himself as the newly crowned political kingpin of the three million plus Kalenjin community is anything to go by the idea has tumbled down and has become cropper.
Ruto and his UDM party is facing myriads of problems and some of the serious hurdles to clear before he realizes his pipe dreams.
The MP and those allied to him are facing total rejection in some regions of the expansive rift Vally Province where the Kalenjins community forms 75 per cent of the total population, particularly the vote rich Kipsigis region in the South Rift.
This Kipsigis is a sub-tribe of the larger Kalenjn ethnic groups. It is the most populous single community which boost close to 1.5 million registered voters in the region and forms 55 per cent of the close to eleven sub-tribes of the entire Kalenjin groups. This when it is put into comparison with the votes from the other sub-tribes, particularly the Nandis which is rivaling the Kipsigis, and William Ruto’s own sub-tribe that can only manage to produce slightly over 600,00 votes In Nandi North,Nandi South, Uasin Gishu and Trans-Nzoia.
In the 2007 general elections, the Kipsigis votes clocked one million marks. The community voted for nine members of parliament in eight rural constituencies within the two counties of Kericho and Bomet.
It captured one extra parliamentary seat in diaspora, namely in Kuresoi, in Molo district which was won by the former powerful Internal Security and Provincial Administration Permanent Secretary Zakayo K.Cheruiyot.
The Kipisigis voters almost extended their gains into the nearby Trans-Mara district in Maasailand where the incumbent MP Brigadier {rtd} Gideon Konchellah nearly succumbed to a defeat by a Kipsigis aspirant.
The community members form close to 45 per cent of the voters in this particular constituency due to massive settlement by Kalenjin ever since 1961 and whose numbers are almost equaling that of the indignant Maasais.
Economically the Kipsigis people blessed and endowed with fertile and arable land with the sufficient annual rainfall are the richest compare to members of the other Kalenjin sub-tribes. The average earning of each family in Kipsigisl and has improved tremendously in the recent years and remained the highest due to money accrued from the sales of green tea leaves.
The leading money minting cash cops is grown in abundance by small-scale farmers in the regions which boost close to twelve green tea manufacturing plants owned by the Kenya Tea Development Authority {KTDA} Kapkatet, Mogogosyek,Chemamul.Litein,Tegat, Kapkoros.Toror,Girgaga,Kobel,Kapset Borok and Chelel There are two more, but privately owned tea factories on at Kab9anga.
There are four privately owned tea factories which include Kaisugu Tea Company, which is owned by the family of the retire President Daniel Arap Moi and Mau Forest Tea factory which is owned by Kasang’wan conglomerate company owned Kipsigis farmers and traders.
The community Iist also involved in massive milk production, producing a lot of English potatoes for sales in the nearby towns of Kisumu, Kisii, Migori, HomBay, Siaya,Mbota, Usenge, Keroka, Oyugis, Kendu-Bay, Ahero, Nakuru and Naivasha minting millions of shillings and other places and many other cash crops.
This community has a strong voting strength in other constituencies such as Rongai,Tinderet, Aldai,Narok North and Narok West as well as Nakuru Town and Naivasha constituencies. All its votes went into the basket of the Raila Odinga led Orange Democratic Movement {ODM}.
However, immediately and soon after disagreeing with Odinga over the Prime Minster’ handling of the Mau Forest eviction saga and the unrealistic claims that the Prime Minister was responsible for his impending criminal charges before the International Criminal Curt of Justice{ICC} at the Hague, William Ruto had launched full scale war of attrition against the ODM leader in a wrong footing assumption that these allegations would win the hearts of the Kalenjin people who had voted for the ODM party on a man t man in 2007 so that the community could ditch the ODM.
His plans and schemes worked well, but only temporarily. However, the political tides changed its course in the region immediately Ruto and his allies launched the plot of pushing out the former UDM chairman, the highly respected Kipsigis man for deputy SGS Let. Gen.{rtd} John Arap Koech
He made a gross miscalculation of trying to push Koech out of the UDM so that he could preserve the party and use it as a ladder for his future soft landing when his seemingly irreconcilable disagreement intensified. He had used the retired and perennial parliamentary election loser in Buret constituency and former National chairman of the Kenya National Union of Teachers {KNUT} Joseph Arap Chirchir and made hi the new chairman of UDM.
Ruto father mad another political blunder when he tried to short-change Chirchir by trying to bungling him out of the held of the UDM leadership in preference to the former National Assembly House Speaker Francis Ole Kaparo whom he thought could be more useful and help make a major inroad into the Maasai community in which he had been kept at bay by the ODM leaders headed by the Minister for ulture and National Heritage William Ole Ntimama +
Ruto single handed brought on board Ole Kaparo a respected Maasai leader after realizing that he could not penetrate the Maasailand due to the presence of the ageing William Ole Ntimama the MP for the Narok North constituency, who is the de-facto leader of the Maasai who had chosen to stuck with the ODM.
The Kipsigis people read malice in Ruto’s move and took a firm stand in rejecting his political machinations. Moreover, they are arguing that Ruto has never been mandated by the party NEC to make any changes in policy including the appointments at the UDM secretariat as he is considered as a friend of the party only and not its leader.
Another blow which has struck the Eldoret North MP below the belt is his recent unlawful move in cancelling the UDM elections held in Kericho Bomet in the presence of the de facto leader Joseph Chirchr after his supporters led by he MP were locked out of the election venue which were held at the posh Tea Hotel and conducted by the party’s deputy National Organising and Publicity Secretary Justice Kemei in the presence of the National Chairman Joseph Chirchir.
The National chairman of the UDM Chichir has since defiantly ordered for the reinstatement of those elected in Kericho County despite the cancellation of the elections by Ruto.
This move has put the Eldoret North MP in an awkward position in the party, a position which could only be resolved by grass root and national elections. Chirchir is working in cohort with the party’s Secretary General Martin Ole Kamwaro himself a Maasai.
The Kipsigis politician maintains that Ruto has no respect for their own elected leaders. He recently made a blunder when he told a public rally in he region that the Kipkellion MP who is the Energy Assistant Minister was never elected to parliament in a democratic manner and that the MP was the product of the massive rigging of the 2007 general elections.
These utterances have caused high degree of annoyance among the level mined Kipsigis leaders.They has vowed to ditch UDM and return to ODM en mess.
Ends