Mt Kenya leaders support new lineup, selection of Kiunjuri for powerful slot

DP William Ruto chats with former MP Mwangi Kiunjuri when he arrived for a church service at PCEA Nanyuki. (PHOTO: DPPS)

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s political stronghold, Mt Kenya, is generally happy with the new Cabinet lineup dominated by leaders from the area and those from the Rift Valley, Deputy President William Ruto's backyard.

Devolution docket nominee Mwangi Kiunjuri was probably rewarded for being the among the first party leaders to volunteer to disband his Grand National Union (GNU) to join the Jubilee Alliance as requested by the President.

The fact that he comes from Laikipia, where residents and local leaders have complained that they were largely sidelined from the Jubilee Government, could also have helped.

His experience, having joined Parliament at the age of 27 and served in former President Mwai Kibaki’s government as assistant minister in three ministries from 2008 to 2013 also puts him in a position of influence in the Mt Kenya region and among his peers.

Kiunjuri is technically still the party leader of GNU and chairman of the Athi Water Services Board, positions he will have to relinquish after vetting by Parliament to officially take up his Cabinet post.

Although he now lives in Laikipia, Kiunjuri was born in 1969 in Tetu Constituency, Nyeri County, went to school at Kahurura Primary School, Dr Kiano Secondary School and Kangema High School, where he his ‘A’ level exams. Afterwards, he pursued a Bachelor of Education degree at Moi University.

After graduating in 1995, he served as an untrained teacher for two years and studied Law for three years but dropped out. He later pursued a Master’s degree in Business Adminstration at the United States International University, graduating last year.

Political analyst Peter Kagwanja says Kiunjuri’s eloquence, charisma and connection with the Mt Kenya masses must have been his key appeal to the Jubilee Government. Kiunjuri speaks some very flowery Gikuyu spiced with proverbs, and is also conversant with the Meru language.

According to Prof Kagwanja, Kiunjuri’s performance during the campaigns for the 2010 referendum, in which he towered above the region’s then Cabinet ministers (he was then an assistant minister), usually speaking just before Uhuru (then deputy prime minister), is remembered and highly valued by the Jubilee top command.

Notably, Kiunjuri’s Cabinet position makes him the first Kikuyu minister from Laikipia County since GG Kariuki in 1983 and the first minister from the area since Francis ole Kaparo in 1992. He will also become the second-highest ranking Kikuyu leader in the national government, and the first from the ‘diaspora counties’ to be that close to the national political apex.

“Jubilee had clearly established an urgent need to detach from a model of a non-political government of technocrats who mostly sat in office and had little connection with wananchi,” says Kagwanja. “They were leaving the principals badly exposed because they had zero capacity to deflect the Opposition.”

The political analyst says the reshuffle has also helped Jubilee to rid itself the perception of corruption and to end a simmering and dangerous rebellion over the same in its strongholds.

Interviews with key leaders reveal a happy coterie of supporters only a fortnight after a rebellion on whether Devolution CS Anne Waiguru should resign threatened to weaken the ruling coalition.

None of the leaders who had passionately demanded that the embattled CS quit objected to the new government lineup.