President will win in 2027 using same old bag of political tricks

You do not have to be a gambler to bet on two things: One, that President William Ruto is on his way to winning a second term in office in 2027. And two, that Dr Ruto will win by using the same bag of tricks he deployed in the 2022 presidential election.

Back in 2022, Ruto captured the imagination of more than six million voters by splashing billions of shillings, just like his key opponent who was buoyed by the State juggernaut. But he went a step or two further; he appealed to Kenya’s notoriously religious nature, poverty and fantasy.

Fantasy is a proven trick in Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power—law 32: Play to People’s Fantasies. Avoid the truth, because it is ugly and unpleasant. And so Ruto cleverly used the harsh realities of poverty and deprivation to feed the rich fantasies of millions of the poor. It worked, and Ruto, the pied piper of the poor in 2022, had a queue of millions following him all the way to State House, all riding on his fantastic wheelbarrow.

You do not need to be a political scientist to tell that the President is already working the poor into another political fantasy. The queue of millions of poor Kenyans is already forming behind his brand new fantasy—the Singapore dream. If the ‘wheelbarrow-to-limousine’ fantasy worked for him in 2022, and there are all indications that the Singapore fantasy will work for him again in 2027.

Fantasy works, but it works even better when buttressed by a religion. In 2022, Ruto used churches to buttress his fantastic gospel of turning wheelbarrows to limousines, and successfully had his name woven into Kenya’s religious fabric almost overnight. Before 2022, there were two commandments in the church: Love your God and love your neighbour. But in the months leading to the 2022 presidential election, a third commandment quietly emerged—love Ruto.

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Clerical gowns

Again, you do not need to be a political scientist to know that the President has been quietly worming his way back to the pulpit. If Ruto goes missing any Sunday, look for him no further than the church—there, in the middle of the fluffy clerical gowns, canonical caps and dog collars, you shall find him. The wolf’s trick of getting to the middle of the herd by blending in works every time, and anyone who has used it before only becomes better at it.

Then there is Ruto and women voters. Unlike some of his political opponents, he has been careful to avoid publicly doing or saying anything that might estrange him from women’s vote. On the contrary, the President oozes political romance whenever he is interacting with women voters—flashing his dimpled smile, effortlessly gliding into the dance, dishing out gifts and donations. 

In 2022, Ruto deployed the same trick on Mama Mboga, and had her sing his name in her sleep. Granted, she is still brooding after the President ditched her shortly after the 2022 poll, but there are all indications that he is slowly but steadily wooing Mama Mboga and her daughters back. In the mountain, an infatuated Mama Mboga is already singing: "kai twendana na Ruto tworaga Mũndũ?" (have we killed anyone by falling in love with Ruto?).

As for the youth, we might as well forget their revolutionary ideas. The most revolutionary among them are already singing Ruto’s praises. All the President needed to do was stuff some candy into the loudest mouths. Besides, the President has quietly but efficiently slipped the feeding bottle into the mouths of millions of young Kenyans—the suckling noises of Nyota Fund are already reverberating across the country.

And Ruto has since overgrown the clever ploy that he deployed in 2022 pitting the majority ‘hustlers’ against the few ‘dynasties’. Within the shortest time in the history of dynasty building, he has become a dynasty himself.

If anyone asks you whether Kenya’s 2027 political bride is taken or not, you do not need to be a political scientist or a wizard to confidently say, as they do on the streets: Hii imeenda—this one is taken.

Mr Muchiri is a journalist