William Ruto's improbable journey warms the hearts of majority

By Mohamed Dida | 1yr ago | 2 min read

**President William Ruto** **(center) with other leaders arriving for the Kenya Kwanza Parliamentary group meeting in Naivasha on September 16, 2022.** [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

From politics to business, today's world is filled with stories of extraordinary people who have worked their way up from obscurity to success.

The election of Dr William Ruto as Kenya's fifth President goes way beyond a story of a politician not born into any position of advantage but attained the highest position of influence - it is that of a candidate who surmounted the insurmountable. It is a perfect archetype of the impossible made possible.

When he was declared the President-elect, newspapers, radios, and televisions across the world ran stories of a roadside chicken seller winning Kenya's presidency emphasizing how he overcame the humblest socio-economic background to reach such a high political standing.

What no one has spoken about is how President Ruto transcended intractable impediments placed on his path. He did not only beat an established and seasoned political opponent but also defeated powerful state machineries and ruthless system of the high and the mighty.

I would be lying if I am to say I know detailed nature of the obstacles planted against him or how he overcame them. But from what was publicly discernible, he weathered political skulduggery, open betrayals and deadly backstabbing.

He was turned into a bystander in a government he helped form, whose office was starved of resources to curtail the discharge of his constitutional mandate, whose friends' bank accounts were frozen to constrict his support base.

On the 13th September, 2022, we inaugurated into office, a man against whom the justice and legal system, the anti-corruption bodies, the national police, the Central Bank and the entire banking system and the revenue authority were all marshalled to severally and jointly, cripple his presidential bid.

As I said earlier, no one can clearly explain how Dr Ruto surmounted all these obstacles. Firstly, President Ruto rolled up his sleeves, crisscrossed the nation, exploited the widest path to electoral victory and out-campaigned his rivals. If there can be a man possessed of a political ingenuity and resilience, and endowed with quintessential smartness and inexhaustible energy, President Ruto can be that man. In the 2022 presidential contest, Dr Ruto was simply the stronger candidate.

Keep Reading

Secondly, he faced an opponent lacking in meaningful strategy, The Raila campaign never had effective hit on Dr Ruto besides their "reformers vs deformers" appeal.

Finally, Dr Ruto simply personified the change that Kenya wanted. His campaign slogans "hustler" and "bottom up" had more appeal to voters than the combined reform credentials presented by Raila and Martha Karua - laced with "Yawezekana" chant.

Ruto had no difficulty positioning himself as the change agent. The fact that he was the Deputy President turned out to be a footnote, effectively helping him escape the curse of Kenya's deputies never taking over from the presidents.

The writer is Principal Administrative Secretary at Marsabit County Government