Ruto and Raila: Case of friends turned bitter rivals

Kenya’s current civic activities are increasingly packaged and marketed as curtain-raisers to a 2022 presidential competition between Deputy President William Ruto right) and ODM leader Raila Odinga (left). From the outset, the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) has been debated around the same two leaders. So, too, has been the handshake that gave birth to the BBI. Within this Ruto-Raila antagonistic divide, everything else seems to be secondary, including all other presidential hopefuls. Also lost are the issues that should inform political competition. Ruto and Raila are mirrored in almost every happening, at their expense.

The competition between the two leaders demonstrates just how far apart two political allies can drift. For only 11 years ago, the two were political bosom friends. Back then, they schemed how to wrestle power from President Mwai Kibaki. The man who is deputy president today was Raila’s junior political partner, seeking to help him ascend to the presidency.

Raila had recently been named the ODM presidential flag bearer in what would turn out to be the most violent race for State House in Kenya’s history. He named Musalia Mudavadi his deputy. Ruto, they agreed, would be a prime minister in a new arrangement that they purposed to put in place once they won the election. Things were truly looking up for the Orange family that also included other luminaries as Najib Balala, Charity Ngilu and Joe Nyagah in the top echelons of their political dreams.