KENYA’S Deputy President, William Ruto, who is vying for the country’s presidency, had to face a TV inquisition alone after his main rival, Raila Odinga, pulled out of the presidential debate on Tuesday night in Nairobi.
Three days before the event, Odinga’s Azimio coalition wrote to the organisers to say that he would not be taking part because Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza coalition had ruled out discussion on ‘corruption, integrity, ethics, and governance – the key existential questions that Kenya faces’.
Also, Azimio felt that ‘a traditional debate structure with opposing candidates…together on stage is a bad idea this year’.
This was inferring that a ‘failing’ Ruto campaign was looking to score cheap political points against Odinga during a televised debate.
Instead, according to the Azimio statement, Odinga and Martha Karua, his running mate, would be in the Nairobi suburb of Eastlands answering questions ‘put to them by the people of Kenya openly, honestly and free from what would otherwise be nothing more than empty, self-serving political theatre’.
The statement added: ‘It would be a colossal mistake to reward such a person with a national debate.
‘We will not help his failing campaign.
‘He can explain himself and his poor record to voters without our help.’
Ruto had 90 minutes to put his case to Kenyans without Odinga and he began briskly by dismissing his opponent’s absence: ‘My competitor is not here because he doesn’t have a plan; he doesn’t have an agenda; he cannot articulate anything to the people of Kenya.’
He added that Odinga did not have the ability to answer tough questions.
In admitting that Kenya ‘is faced with mounting challenges’, many viewers could have read this as an indictment of his and President Uhuru Kenyatta’s 10 years in office.
But he quickly countered: ‘We have a huge track record of what we have achieved but there is tremendous opportunity out there for more to be achieved.’
Ruto said he was therefore ‘the candidate with a plan to be able to get Kenya to the next level’.
But he appears to be carrying a heavy baggage, given that the interrogators, Yvonne Okwara and Eric Latiff, pointed out a number of failings of a leadership of which he was the deputy.
For instance, he was asked about the failure of the Big Four Action Plan that was supposed to alleviate the economic squeeze on Kenyans.
The plan was anchored to enhancing manufacturing, food security and nutrition, universal health coverage, and affordable housing.
Ruto said the Plan was ‘sabotaged’ without clearly explaining how this was done.
He then said if he was elected president on August 9, he would reinstate the Plan and double, if not triple, agricultural output.
But the interrogators pointed out that he had made the same promise in 2017 and nothing materialised in the last five years.
On most of the issues – such as the national debt, infrastructural development and contracts – Ruto kept arguing that he was hamstrung in intervening, which Kenyans found strange because he was the second most powerful man in the country.
For instance, on the issue of making private companies comply with public procurement principles, Ruto said he did not play a significant part in this, which left Kenyans wondering what his influence was as deputy president and member of the Cabinet.
He deflected this by saying that he would address this issue if voted in as president.
On the Constitution and governance, Ruto mentioned that the Two-thirds Gender Rule had not been implemented with ‘fidelity’.
This empowers the state to ensure that two-thirds of members of all elective and appointive positions are not of the same gender
Ruto pointed out that the Kenya Kwanza manifesto said that his government would implement the Rule, adding that he believed having more women leaders would enrich the nation.
Already, Azimio appears to be one step ahead on this with the launch earlier this month of its Million Women for Martha (MW4M) campaign to try to corner the female vote.
As the elections draw near, Kenyans are hoping that Ruto, a populist politician, would not muster his youthful supporters to violently challenge the outcome if it goes against him.
He said he would go to court if he had any doubt about the results, adding that he would accept defeat depending on the outcome of the courts.
But Ruto has gone on record as challenging the supremacy of the verdicts of the Supreme Court, although when questioned about this during the debate he said: ‘If there is one person who has fought for the independence of the judiciary, it is William Ruto.’
