By Anderson Ojwang
The numbers factor or shareholding may come to haunt the newly formed united opposition alliance in the choice of a presidential candidate to face off with President William Ruto in the 2027 presidential contest.
The alliance that brings together the impeached deputy president Rigathi Gachagua, Kalonzo Musyoka, Eugene Wamalwa, Fred Matiangi and Martha Karua may find itself in a similar situation found himself with his former deputy.
During Tuesday night interview with Citizens TV Gachugua could have opened the lid to a stormy and thorny issue of numbers each of the presidential aspirants’ control and why he should be considered as the flag bearer.
After his impeachment, Gachagua retreated to Mt Kenya to consolidate the vote bock and now control the region’s politics through his DCP party while Karua plays second fiddle in the control of the region’s political dispensation.
In the last presidential election, in Kirinyaga Karua whose was running mate to Azimio La Umoja Presidential candidate Raila Odinga only delivered 14 percent of the votes despite the county being her backyard. Gachagua delivered 84.08 percent to Ruto accounting for 220.752 against Raila’s 37,978 votes.
In 2007, when Kalonzo contested for presidency on ODM-K ticke and came third after he secured over 800,000 votes countrywide. His votes in Ukambani accounted for 80 per cent of his total tally, trouncing his competitors, ODM leader Raila and the then president, Mwai Kibaki.
Wamalwa is currently engaged in war over the control of his DAP-K party with the Trans Nzoia governor George Natembeya and this has clouded his political agenda. Equally, Wamalwa controls no specific vote bloc in Western Kenya and nationally, this making him a fringe presidential aspirant in the alliance.
Gachagua during the interview explained why he was the best suited candidate and why the opposition should unite and present a single candidate.
“I am interested in running for presidency. I am a candidate to be the president of Kenya. I am qualified and I have support. I am looking for more support and I will be in the ballot.
The constitution guarantees me the right to vie for any office even if I have been convicted. I have not exhausted the avenues available in law. Rigathi Gachagua has a matter before the High Court. It has not even been heard. I will go up to Supreme Court to get justice until then nothing stops me from contesting. I remain free to run for any office as provided in the law.
Kalonzo has capacity to lead the country, so it is for Karua, Matiangi and Wamalwa but I hope they will support me.
We have agreed that along the way all the contenders will agree on the one of us who will be our flag bearer.
I pray and hope thar I will be one. Because I have the drive and the strategies and numbers. Knowing William Ruto, I know him well and I am the best suited person to take him home.
Unity is a must, and we have no choice but to choose one candidate to face William Ruto. All of us have committed and I will be persuading my colleagues that we publicly sign a pact with people of Kenya committing that all of us will support whoever is picked and none will rebel. We will have one candidate, and I believe that the candidate will be me,” he said.
But Gachagua will have to contend with the ghost of shareholding and the number factor to convince his colleagues that he is a nationalist and not a tribalist.
Interestingly, Gachagua fall out with Ruto could have been as a result of the number of votes he delivered to Ruto and the unwritten agreement of 40 percent stake in the Kenya Kwanza government.
This left Ruto with only 60 percent to share out to other allies and regions that did not support his presidential bid in the 2022 presidential election.
The move by Gachagua on the numbers factor could scuttle the united opposition agenda after he declared that he has the numbers and should be considered as the presidential candidate.
“What was agreed on must be fulfilled. We made an agreement that we are investing in this government. This is our expectations. It was a negotiated agreement, and it should be honored to the letter.
Other people were not insisting on the honoring of their agreement. I was under pressure from the people I negotiated on their behalf.
William Ruto turned against me and that he did not want to honor on what we had agreed. Luckily for me and it is mistake that I did and I have to live with, I didn’t insist on a written agreement.
I negotiated for positions, developments, roads, coffee and tea reforms, guaranteed minimum returns for the counties in Kenya.
He came to me because he wanted votes from my region, it was a give and take situation. He asked me, Rigathi I want 75 percent of votes from this region, can you deliver, I said yes and delivered 87 percent. I told him that I expect the following, ministries namely Interior, Finance, trade, Agriculture, Water, Lands and Attorney General.
For me and Ruto, where we started having problem, is when he started taking away what we had negotiated. He took away Finance and gave it to John Mbadi,” he said.
Already Raila has declared that the coalition between him and Ruto will go beyond 2027 and that the electorates will make decision at the ballot.
