In 2016, I established the first chapter of the Jubilee Alliance Party (JAP) in Mombasa. JAP was the precursor of the Jubilee Party. In the next two years, I was part of the team that set up the Jubilee Party under the chairmanship of Kiraitu Murungi and Noah Wekesa.
I was part of the team that worked on the future strategy of the party. It was a great vision; to build a party that would unite Kenyans across the tribal divide and give Kenyans an option between two monolithic parties like the Democrats and the Republicans in the United States. In our last strategy meeting in Naivasha in early 2017, I stood up and demanded reassurance that this new party would not be a Kikuyu-Kalenjin party, but for all of us.
Jubilee went on to win the 2017 elections and retook the government. After the 2017 elections, we started to see the first signs of strains within the party. There were rumours of a serious split between the president and his deputy. Then serious allegations started spreading around.
Soon there was an open onslaught on the Deputy Party Leader, William Ruto. David Murathe, who I once described as Uhuru's Total Man became the Rasputin of Uhuru's court, often going on national television with broadsides against the deputy. It soon became obvious that this was a battle for the soul of Central Kenya votes.
If they had a problem with Ruto, they should have dealt with him using the internal processes of the party instead of destroying the party. Soon it became clear that there was a major purge coming. The night of the long knives came and Ruto's men were all out. They underestimated Ruto and his powers of reinvention. This man had metamorphosed from Kanu to ODM to UDM to URP and now UDA. In the process, while others lost, he had made silk moving from strength to strength.
Ruto exited and left a shell called Jubilee. If this could happen to a kingpin like Ruto, what would happen to us? What happened to those of us from the Coast and other 'irrelevant' regions? We realised that we didn't belong to this "national party". We retreated to our reset positions in ODM, our original party of choice and Baba welcomed us back with open arms. As President, Uhuru had power and authority. He had power as leader of the tribe and legal authority as the president.
Then he lost both. He threw away his position as the unquestioned leader of his community and lost the Presidency. Meanwhile, his partner in Azimio, Baba, has power as the "Peoples President" but no authority. The elections are over, and Uhuru has come out fighting for the soul of Jubilee. What for? He can't run for election anymore. The answer came from Martha Karua who claims that Ruto is trying to destroy Jubilee and in the process destroy the unity of Mt Kenya. Has Jubilee become a party for Central?
What happened to the "National Agenda"? My fears of Naivasha in 2017 have came true. It is a sad decline for what was once a major national party. Sadder that it takes a Ms Karua, who had no time in the past for either Uhuru or Jubilee, to come to its defence. It is even more sad to see Uhuru now stooping to fight with Kanini Kega and Sabina Chege. Really? Running a party is an expensive affair and must have an end-game.
Uhuru cannot vie anymore so clearly retaining control of Jubilee is an attempt to create a Mt Kenya refugee party - refugees from UDA and as long as party honcho's keep talking of shareholders, then those who don't have shares will look for other parties. What does this say about our parties? They are political vehicles to cross election rivers and once they cross, they become irrelevant. Will UDA go this route in 2032? Time will tell. Meanwhile, those of us from marginal areas better start thinking clearly about where we should belong.