DP will forever be in a tight spot having power but no authority

The Deputy President is permanently between a rock and a hard place. And by Deputy President I do not mean William Ruto. I mean whoever occupies that position under the 2010 Constitution. In the previous dispensation, we did not have a 50 per cent plus one threshold. We had a first past-the-post electoral system, meaning that a presidential candidate had no incentive to look for formidable allies to form a ‘winning coalition.’ Anyone could win the presidential election with 33 per cent of the vote.

Rather than looking for formidable allies, it was easier to block opponents from uniting. For this reason, Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi could settle for the Joseph Murumbis, Josephat Karanjas, and George Saitotis of this world; Deputies with little to no political power. But the 2010 Constitution changed this. Now in this clumsy arrangement, Ruto finds himself oscillating between awkwardness, embarrassment and permanent frustration.