How Gachagua's ethnic chauvinism will hand Ruto an easy victory

DCP Leader Rigathi Gachagua, during an exclusive interview with KTN at his Karen Residence on October 5, 2025. [Benard Orwongo, Standard]

If a single individual could hand President William Ruto victory in 2027 elections, it is Rigathi Gachagua and his politics of Mt Kenya ethnic supremacy.  

Ruto’s impeached former DP has immersed himself in ethnic centrism that is a far cry from the politics of the late Raila Odinga, against whom Gachagua would like to model himself. But can this man really be Kenya’s new Raila, even as he dismisses his colleagues in the Opposition as “press conference leaders”?  

Gachagua arrived on the Opposition landscape full of bile, grief and vindictiveness. He plays in this space the politics of anger and crabbiness. He feels betrayed and wronged by President Ruto. His grievance energy, he believes, will make him the new captain of the Opposition, and the next President. Hence, he derides his Opposition colleagues, even in their very presence.  

Is Gachagua endowed with the hubris that comes before the big fall? Here is the one man who wants Kenyans to make him the President in 2027, and yet he embraces unbridled ethnic exceptionalism. He has said in his latest embarrassing ethnic outburst that he has ring-fenced Nairobi County for his party, the Democratic Citizens Party (DCP). He says he has agreed with Wiper Democratic Movement’s Kalonzo Musyoka, that Nairobi governor in 2027 will be from DCP, as will be the senator, and woman county rep. But, beyond, DCP will take 16 out of Nairobi’s 17 parliamentary seats, and the entire Nairobi County Assembly.  

Don’t be naïve, don’t be deceived. When Gachagua says DCP, he does not even mean Mount Kenya. He means the Agikuyu. DCP is only the euphemism. And the man feels so comfortable, so confident in his self-declared role of the king of this community, that he bullies just about everyone from the former Central Province. He terrorises them with prehistoric, cantankerous and blustery energy.  Gachagua’s political DNA is the mirror opposite of Raila’s. Raila professed ethnic inclusion. Gachagua preaches ethnic exclusion. While Raila had a way with the Luo community and certainly bullied them to toe the line, he was more subtle than Gachagua. Gachagua is noisy in his prefecture of the Kikuyu community, almost in the style of a slave owner. He is the tribal landlord before whom everyone must kneel, or be reduced to irrelevance in the civic affairs of the community. 

This man is possibly not serious about becoming President. He cuts more of the figure of an aspiring ethnic captain, with his tribe as collateral in political pawning. Hence, when other presidential hopefuls front national injustices, Gachagua talks about personal wounds, and betrayal of his tribe. His focus is on lost entitlements, both real and imagined. For this matter, his community must take Nairobi, to the exclusion of everyone else. Now where does a future President talk like that? 

If Gachagua discriminates against non-Kikuyu Kenyans when he is still pitching for State House, what happens the day – perchance – he gets there? Kenya will always need open-handed leaders. They will be accommodative leaders, who want to share available space and opportunities with everyone else. They will be patient leaders who embrace dialogue. 

Gachagua’s narrow and noisy populism brings him out as a tribal mobiliser, who at the very best can only be a temporary thorn in Ruto’s flesh. He, however, lacks unifying credentials, not just across the country, but even within his Kikuyu community. He cannot build winning alliances across Kenyan communities, nor does he have the capacity to become a national moral voice, or symbol.  

The person to get William Ruto out of State House must transcend the tribe. He must, especially, transcend jingoist tribal majoritarianism, and ethnic sense of entitlement. S/he must speak to injustice across the Kenyan nation, and carry him/herself with humility. Yes, you can be emotionally electrifying to a section of your tribe. However, that will not make you good for the country. Indeed, if the perception becomes that Gachagua is electrifying his community to dominate Nairobi, then Ruto has it all sewn up.  In short, Gachagua will want to get back to the drawing board, if he ever had one. His loud, combative, ethnic-grievance agenda will only alienate him from the rest of the country and, methinks, from significant populations in his own community. The last thing a nation striving to remove Kenya Kwanza from power is ethnic supremacy rhetoric. As we would say here in Emanyulia, Rigathi Gachagua TAWE! It’s a no, no!

-Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke