William Ruto's tough balancing act to appease UDA hardliners, Azimio

"A purely parliamentary process may not serve the intended ends. Our suggestion is to have a conversation at the national level through a process akin to the 2008 National Accord. To this end, the coalition proposes a team drawn from its ranks both in Parliament and outside Bunge," he said after a meeting of the coalition's top brass in Nairobi.

He also threatened to abandon the talks at the first hint of "a lack of seriousness" from the president's side and "go back to the trenches."

On Sunday, Raila called off anti-government demonstrations for a week pending the success of talks with Ruto's administration.

The president had proposed engagements through Parliament that would address the recruitment of commissioners of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), in response to the opposition's demand to halt the process.

Azimio had also demanded that election servers be opened and Ruto's administration lower the high cost of living. The opposition wants a return to subsidies, stating that the cost of living need not be addressed through committee engagements.

As he extended an olive branch to the opposition, Ruto highlighted the interventions his government had put in place to lower food prices, such as subsidized fertiliser and the importation of food. He was silent on the opening of servers, but has previously dismissed it as unrealistic and "unconstitutional."

After agreeing to the president's offer on Sunday, on Tuesday Raila insisted that all the opposition's demands must be placed on the table, creating a dilemma for Ruto amid the threat of a return to demonstrations, which have adverse financial implications.

At the same time, other stakeholders, such as Catholic bishops, want to be included in the talks, arguing that the issues that Kenyans face are not just political.

Then there are hardliners within the Kenya Kwanza Alliance that Ruto must satisfy. Most of them read Raila's demands as a plot to secure a slot in government through the backdoor.

United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Secretary General Cleophas Malala issued a statement as soon as Raila finished addressing the Press, accusing him of seeking to hold the president "at ransom."

"(The) Formation of any body, not legally recognised by the Constitution or statutory law amounts to living in utopia and broad daylight hallucination," Mr Malala said, despite Raila's assertions that he did not seek a handshake with the government. More Kenya Kwanza politicians trooped to social media to register their dissent.

"Raila Odinga is an exposed man desperate for power at whatever cost. How does he equate the current situation to the 2007/08 period and ask for power-sharing under a National Accord arrangement?" posed Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale, a position shared by Nakuru Governor Susan Kihika.

"Here we draw the line. No Nusu Mkate (whatever they want to baptize it) No Handshake! No Grand Coalition! No Cooperation!" Kihika tweeted.

Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot termed the National Accord haram.

But not everyone within Ruto's camp read Raila's proposal as meant to secure government slots.

"We are in a space as a country where people must learn to listen to each other and not prejudge the intentions of the other. I find nothing reprehensible in what has been proposed by the Hon Odinga here," said Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing'oei, a confidant of Ruto.

The general concern among the hardliners has been that the handshake would see the president edge out his allies to accommodate Raila and the opposition.

"Hardliners will be concerned by the possibility of a handshake because such an intervention dilutes the import of elections and may compromise President Ruto's capacity to deliver on the Kenya Kwanza manifesto," said political analyst Dismas Mokua, who believes that Ruto's opposition to a handshake stems from his belief in democracy.

"He believes in competitive politics and the need for an agile opposition and that elections have winners and losers so that all parties must respect the will of registered voters as expressed in election outcomes," Mokua added.

But university lecturer Gitile Naituli argues that Ruto's position is meant to chide the opposition as only interested in a handshake.

"Ruto is a hardliner. By dismissing a handshake and accepting talks, he wants to deflate the opposition's push that was turning into a threat to his presidency," said Prof Naituli. "But he could be honest and knows how the Uhuru and Raila handshake disappointed and was painful to Kenyans."

Raila and Ruto have made it clear that they harbour no such intentions, a message that they reiterated separately on Tuesday when they ruled out a "handshake."

The handshake, in this sense, implied a working arrangement akin to that of Raila and former President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2018, whose result, Ruto said, would be a muzzled opposition. The Head of State said as much on Sunday as he urged dialogue with the opposition. Flanking the president during the State House briefing was Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who must have been relieved by the assertion that no handshake was in the offing.

Mr Gachagua had spent the last few weeks leading the chorus against any dialogue between Ruto and Raila, stating that the only dialogue they would engage in was one about the former prime minister's retirement from active politics.

As civil society, religious and international players called for dialogue between the two, hardliners on both sides goaded Ruto and Raila into escalating the stand-off.

None of the opposition's grievances, the DP said, were realistic. The president had no powers to open election servers and he could not reinstate former commissioners of the electoral agency.

Gachagua and a host of Kenya Kwanza lawmakers, led by National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wah, were among those considered government hardliners.

They did not buy into the opposition's intentions with their anti-government protests just as much as many of them suspect the intentions of the proposal for a process akin to the National Accord, given the history of previous truces.