Gachagua-Muturi feud threatens opposition unity in Mt Kenya

At a time when the United Opposition should be preoccupied with complying with the looming Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) electoral calendar timelines, an exchange of ear-jarring altercations between Democracy for the Citizens Party (DCP) leader Rigathi Gachagua and Democratic Party (DP) leader Justin Muturi threatens to scuttle the delicate search for unity behind a joint flag-bearer.

The past week saw leading opposition actors turn their rhetorical fire on each other in a clumsy and undignified manner.

Gachagua and Muturi went at each other in a manner rarely witnessed before, exposing simmering tensions that could open a second front in the battle to split the Mountain voting bloc. This time, the contest is unfolding within the opposition camp rather than against the Government and its allies.

It began with Muturi making a scathing statement challenging Gachagua’s “One Mountain, One Party, One Leader” slogan during a popular vernacular television show on Sunday night. Muturi questioned Gachagua’s assertion that the entire Mountain region had resolved to stand as a solid DCP bloc behind him.

In his usual bluster, Gachagua is fond of repeating the slogan at his political events, notwithstanding the existence of more than a dozen other parties and party leaders expected to sponsor their own candidates in the 2027 General Election. These include Muturi’s Democratic Party (DP) and Martha Karua’s People’s Liberation Party (PLP).

On Monday, Muturi released a statement calling out Gachagua’s assertion as misleading and false.

“Mr Gachagua must understand one fundamental truth.

No Kenyan president has ever been made by one community or region alone,” the former Attorney General said.

In a fiery rejoinder on Tuesday, Gachagua used a televised address to berate Muturi, questioning his political standing and suggesting that someone who could not secure a majority vote for an MCA candidate at his own village polling station had little business lecturing him about winning presidential elections.

On Wednesday, while hosting former Head of Public Service and second Nyandarua Governor Francis Kimemia at his Wamunyoro home, Gachagua unleashed Ol Kalou MP Douglas Kamau, who made unsavoury accusations insinuating that Muturi was responsible for the Mbeere parliamentary by-election loss last July.

Sources say Muturi has organised a major rally in his Siakago hometown, where he is expected to host leaders from Embu County, including former Senator Lenny Kivuti, to respond to Gachagua’s attacks on Saturday.

The escalation could scuttle opposition attempts to secure the Mountain region as a safe zone in the face of aggressive efforts by the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party to dominate the region by flooding it with multiple county- and constituency-based parties backing President William Ruto’s re-election for a second term.

The infighting comes at a time when Kivuti has reportedly turned down overtures to abandon the Mbus party associated with Kiraitu Murungi and join DCP in exchange for support for his bid for the Embu gubernatorial seat.

If Kivuti and Muturi joined hands to field candidates against DCP without a political consensus in Embu and Meru, they could easily amplify the narrative of a Mt Kenya East versus Mt Kenya West rivalry that opposition leaders have been trying to suppress.

Both Muturi and Gachagua are former long-term allies and friends of retired President Uhuru Kenyatta. They are also currently close associates of Wiper Patriotic Front leader Kalonzo Musyoka, who stands to lose the most from an escalation of hostilities between the two.

Gachagua and Muturi’s altercations are an outward manifestation of a simmering and unresolved political dynamic in the Mt Kenya region, one that is often discussed in whispers within safe political spaces.

The unresolved Mountain question

Gachagua never misses an opportunity to remind his audiences that he mobilised the Mt Kenya region to vote for Ruto under his United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party without conditions, on the basis of pure trust. That trust, he argues, was subsequently betrayed when he was impeached barely two years after his election into office.

He has since successfully turned his acrimonious impeachment into a communal grievance of betrayal, transforming it into a platform through which he robustly articulates Mt Kenya’s political, socioeconomic and cultural grievances and channels them into deep-seated resentment against the UDA administration.

He has been intentional and unrelenting in framing the UDA administration, its leadership and agents as existential threats to the region, its people and the country.

This narrative has resonated in the region and helps explain the huge crowds turning up at his rallies, often without financial inducements, as well as the scramble for the DCP brand by aspirants compared with rival political formations.

As Gachagua went through his political tribulations and eventually managed to rise from the ashes, re-emerging in DCP colours, the region’s senior-most political elder, retired President Uhuru Kenyatta, remained ambiguously silent.

In his first public appearance after Gachagua’s impeachment, during the installation of Bishop Peter Kimani of the Embu Catholic Diocese on November 24, 2024, Uhuru neither acknowledged Gachagua in his address nor commented on the overwhelming sense of despondency that had enveloped the Mountain region following the impeachment of a deputy president whom the community had overwhelmingly elected barely 24 months earlier.

It took Archbishop Antony Muheria of Nyeri, who was the master of ceremonies, to acknowledge Gachagua’s presence by name, drawing thunderous applause from those present.

Last April, Uhuru had another opportunity to offer a hint of where he stood on pertinent issues concerning the region. At the funeral of former Kirinyaga Senator Daniel Karaba, however, he chose his characteristic ambiguous silence.

At the funeral of  Martha Karua’s father last month, he again maintained his legendary ambiguous silence.

Meanwhile, his alleged behind-the-scenes involvement in other political formations remains the subject of political whispers and rumours.

Gachagua’s supporters lament that while Uhuru ensured that neither his The National Alliance (TNA) nor Jubilee parties allowed personalities from Mt Kenya to rise to key national positions, he now seems keen to undermine the self-made emergence of another leader or independent political formation.

This partly explains Gachagua’s reluctance to join Azimio la Umoja, which has since been rebranded as Ukombozi and which some view as Uhuru’s avenue for extending his political shadow beyond retirement, following ten years as President and an earlier five-year stint as Deputy Prime Minister.

Gachagua cannot choose Uhuru’s friends for him, just as the Ukombozi camp must also resolve its own dilemma about whom it needs most between the two sons of the Mountain.

One is rumoured to have deep pockets for campaign splurges, while the other claims to command eight million voters through the force of his political rhetoric.

The question remains whether these competing political interests can be reconciled before they abort the opposition’s search for a common flag-bearer and a united Mountain voting bloc is consumed by internal rivalries.