In what signals widening of cracks in the ruling Jubilee Party, Deputy President William Ruto yesterday expressed his strongest reservations to date on the Handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
He told the President that the architects of the “Stop Ruto 2022 Movement” led by Raila are idlers who have nothing to offer and are only out to derail the Jubilee vision and dismissed his political rivals as “idlers, war mongers and propagandists out to cause confusion both in the country and the Jubilee Party.
“Wakati tunapanga mambo ya shule kama hii tumekuja hapa leo, yule mtu wa vitandawili na watu wake wameanzisha mradi eti stop Ruto movement. Eti hii ndio mradi sasa. Sasa mimi nawaambia jameni, hii mradi wenu ni ya 2022, si mtulize boli. 2022 ni mbali (At a time we are busy addressing educational issues like today, this man Raila and his people are busy setting up a Stop Ruto movement which has become their main project. But I can confidently tell you that the movement is about 2022 that is far away. Why can’t they go slow?” he posed.
Speaking during a fundraiser at Kamahuha Girls High School in Murang’a county yesterday, the DP described the plot to politically destabilise him using the ongoing anti-graft war as a “mission impossible” and derided Jubilee leaders who have been crafted into it, that they are being used to fight a war they know nothing about.
Ruto accused Raila, who with his opposition National Super Alliance (Nasa) co-principals Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetang’ula, has backed Uhuru’s anti-graft war of being the patron of the movement trying to block him from the 2022 succession race.
Ruto, however, said he would work with the President to focus on service delivery, adding that they will not allow anyone to divide them. “I know we shall be judged by higher standards because we have promises we made to our people so we cannot stoop down to the level of people who have no responsibilities,” he added.