President adopts new strategy to assert authority

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s transformation into a secretive, firm politician who sometimes makes solitary decisions continues to baffle even his inner circle while raising tension in the Jubilee Party.

Friday’s truce between the President and his political nemesis Raila Odinga which caught everyone flat-footed including Deputy President William Ruto is quite telling about his new style of doing things.

So secretive was what was going to happen Friday morning that an alert sent to newsrooms by the Presidential Strategic Communications Unit (PSCU) only said the President was going to be at Harambee House that morning without giving details.

It is emerging that Ruto who Saturday Standard reported that he was in his office just across the road as Raila and Kenyatta held talks at Harambee House was waiting to be called for the press briefing but the call never came. He tweeted thirty minutes after the press conference praising Raila and Uhuru for being statesmen.

But since the disputed poll in August last year, the President has on a number of occasions caught his foot soldiers including the DP unawares. When he announced the initial list of Cabinet Secretary nominees, Ruto stayed away from the unveiling event at State House in protest of some of the people Kenyatta wanted to name.

During the unveiling of the second list of Cabinet Secretaries the Head of State read the names from a piece of paper he had scribbled forcing his communication team to generate a press release from a video script after wards. And while they are not saying it in public some of Ruto’s handlers complain of having been given a raw deal in the Cabinet appointments.

And if the recent occurrences are anything to go by, President Kenyatta appears to be laying ground for a firm presidency in his final term. During the first term he was often accused of being an indecisive leader often acting when it is too late and consulting too much.

Like for instance as his lieutenants were chiding the opposition for politicking about last year’s election including up to two weeks ago, insiders say the president was already engaging Raila from as far as three weeks ago on the possibility of calling a truce.

“How do you get sworn in as the President and you go back to your wife yet you say you are the President? What kind of theatrics are those?” Ruto posed in Bungoma two weeks ago unaware talks were already ongoing between the Kenyatta and Raila camps.

So secretive were the talks between the President and NASA leader that senior Jubilee Party officials asked in confidence by the Sunday Standard said they are unaware what was talked about.

“Those trying to suggest what the two leaders discussed are just speculating which is only meant to mislead Kenyans,” said the party official.

“The people should stop to speculate on what transpired in the meeting between the two leaders on Friday. A committee which was formed will be given the terms of reference and they will inform us about what they will be looking at,” he said.