NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 6 -The ruling Jubilee party has said it will not use the laid down mechanism to push for the resignation of Deputy President William Ruto from his elective post and that of the party.
Ruto is the Deputy Party leaders in Jubilee but he has lately shifted base to his United Democratic Alliance (UDA) which he plans to use to vie for the presidency in August 2022 when President Uhuru Kenyatta’s second and final term will end.
On Monday, Jubilee party officials led by Secretary General Raphael Tuju and Majority Leader in the National Assembly Amos Kimunya said it it up to Ruto to quit.
“When you belong to one political party, you cannot promote the interests of another political party. You are deemed to have resigned from the former political party. The decent thing for Ruto would have been to resign from Jubilee party,” Kimunya said.
The relationship between President Kenyatta and his deputy have been on the rocks since March 2018 when the Head of State shook hands with Opposition leader Raila Odinga and invited him to the government in what Ruto saw as a ploy to lock him out of the 2022 succession.
Since then Ruto has resorted to criticising the government from within, including opposing the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) plan to amend the Constitution which was dismissed by the Constitutional Court as null and void. The decision was upheld on August 20 by the Appeals Court by proponents of the bid to amend the laws have moved to the Supreme Court.
With less than a year to the polls, the party now says they have left the jury to Kenyans to judge Ruto on his conduct accusing him of derailing the government and party agenda.
“We leave it to Kenyans to determine the character of the person. If you can’t follow the law and instead you continue to tell Kenyans that you will be their savioir once elected as President, it tells a lot about you,” Kimunya said of Ruto.
Two weeks ago, President Kenyatta said at a meeting with Editors at State House that Ruto ought to resign instead of criticising his government from within.
“The best thing is for him to resign, he is criticising the government daily,” Kenyatta said before Ruto fired back, declaring, he is in the government to stay.
He said he was given the mandate by the people because he was on a joint ticket with the president.
“I will not resign,” Ruto declared, “It will be a huge let down to Kenyans who gave me the job to defend them.”
Ruto has lately intensified campaigns to succeed Kenyatta, with daily meetings, often accusing top political leaders including the president himself of plotting to lock him out of the race.
“I know they are plotting against me daily, even the BBI was all about power-sharing but God will not let that happen,” Ruto said recently.
The ruling party has also called on Ruto to declare the source of his wealth following revelations by Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i last week when he appeared be MPs in the parliamentary security committee where he was summoned to explain why General Service Unit (GSU) officers were withdrawn from Ruto’s residences and replaced.
Matiang’i told the MPs that Ruto owns five helicopters, two high-end hotels in Nairobi and Mombasa, thousands of acres of land among others all of which are guarded by police officers.
Following the revelation, Ruto’s allies took to social media to condemn the statement and demanded that the first family too should account for what they own since the days of the founding President Jomo Kenyatta.
Tuju said Ruto had crossed the line by failing to tame his political allies from attacking the founding President Jomo Kenyatta and the first family in advancing their agenda, including on social media.
“They have no respect, these unwarranted attacks on the first family must stop. The founding president is not around to defend himself,” Tuju told a news conference at the party headquarters on Monday.
Tuju said it was time Ruto told Kenyans where and how he acquired his massive wealth, including five helicopters and thousands of acres of land, hotels and other property listed in Matiangi’s statement.
Tuju said Ruto had acquired massive wealth which he cannot explain, even though he is a known businessman.
“In fact it is time he produced the manual to Kenyans on get rich quick that will be beneficial to his hustler movement,” Tuju said during a press conference at the party headquarters where he accused Ruto of ditching the party that sponsored him to office to his new outfit, the United Democratic Alliance (UDA).
