Demystifying Ruto's leadership style and Kenyans' expectations

President William Ruto during Jamhuri Day celebrations at Nyayo National Stadium, Nairobi, on December 12, 2025. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Watching President William Ruto deliver his Jamhuri Day speech at Nyayo National Stadium reminded me of an old parable about a scorpion that asks a frog to carry it across a river.

Halfway, the scorpion stings the frog. As they begin to sink, the frog cries out, “Why did you sting me? Now we will both drown!” The scorpion replies, “I could not help it. It is in my nature.”

This story is often told as an invitation to understand power politics. Not as a matter of personal preference or individual morality, but as the expression of deeper instincts, patterns and governing impulses. It asks us to stop pretending to be shocked by predictable outcomes.

And that is precisely where Kenya is today with President Ruto’s administration. For three years, many Kenyans have asked, “Why would the President do this? Why attack the Judiciary? Why crush devolution? Why centralise power? Why punish dissent? Why raid institutions? Why the relentless appetite for control?”, “why make promises you cannot fulfill?”

The answer is: he is acting according to his political nature. The tragedy for Kenya is not that Ruto behaves this way. The tragedy is we continue to behave like the frog, shocked at every sting, praying for reform where the nature of the creature makes reform impossible, and expecting outcomes that contradict instincts of the actor.

Ruto’s politics has never been anchored in ideological clarity or programmatic grounding. To him, compromise is weakness, dissent is treason, and independence of institutions is a threat. Like the scorpion, this way of operating is not driven by malice. It is driven by instinct. Since assuming office, the administration has displayed a consistent pattern of institutional capture.

Nearly every independent institution, Parliament, commissions, security agencies, and regulatory bodies have been bent toward the will of the Executive. Budgets are weaponised. Appointments are transactional. Public servants are intimidated into political loyalty. This is not accidental. It is the natural consequence of a leadership style that distrusts anything it cannot control. From attacking the Judiciary to undermining Chapter Fifteen institutions, the message is clear: accountability is an inconvenience. Judges who stand on principle are called activists. Independent commissioners who resist political pressure are targeted. Here again, the sting is not personal. It is structural. A political mindset built on raw power cannot coexist comfortably with systems designed to check and balance authority.

Under Ruto, the state has become a machine for extraction. Taxes are increased, not to build, but to feed an administration whose operating instinct is accumulation rather than development. Public private partnerships are weaponised as conduits for patronage. The privatisation spree from parastatals to national assets is not a policy miscalculation. It is the very essence of his administration. There is a collective naivety that confuses hope with analysis. We keep insisting that “things will change,” that “he will listen,” that “he will correct course.” We keep looking for remorse, or a statesmanlike pivot forgetting that a scorpion does not change its nature because the frog pleads. 

Kenyans are dealing with a leader whose political compass was calibrated long ago and calibrated toward confrontation, domination, and extraction. To understand Ruto is not to surrender. It is to prepare. When you understand the nature of the individual, you stop asking for compassion from an instinct-driven presidency.

Nations collapse not because leaders act according to their instincts but because citizens choose denial over clarity. The 2027 election will not be a contest between good and evil.

It will be a contest between instinct and institution, between a political tradition anchored in personal power and a new vision anchored in democratic renewal. Understanding the Ruto style of leadership enables us to stop romanticising the sting.

The scorpion will always sting. The question is whether the frog finally learns or whether we sink again, pretending to be surprised. Kenya cannot afford another lesson in naïve trust. The river is rising.