This feature is part of Blavity’s African Spotlight series, which highlights heads of state, as well as other politicians and societal leaders, who are currently in power or influencing change on the continent. African leaders are making a significant impact both in their own countries and internationally. Growing diasporas and increasing interconnectivity make developments on the continent more relevant to Black America and people everywhere than ever before.
On Monday, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission of Kenya announced that Vice President William Ruto had won the country’s presidential election that was held a week earlier. Ruto will thus become the fifth president in the country’s history, and his election is an important test for democracy and stability in Kenya, a country that has gone from election-related chaos to competition and stability.
William Ruto's history as a political foot soldier
The 55-year-old has spent most of his life in politics serving the agenda of other powerful men. In 1992, a 25-year-old Ruto became a top official in the organization Youth for KANU ’92, which sought to drum up support for the ruling Kenya African National Union or KANU party and its domineering leader, President Daniel Arap Moi.
At the time, Kenyan politics had been dominated by two men. Jomo Kenyatta, a leading figure in the independence struggle against British colonial rule, led the country as its founding father from 1963 until he died in 1978. Along the way, he got rid of any potential challenger, such as his politically vocal first vice president, Oginga Odinga, who was fired and eventually replaced by the more cooperative Moi.
As Kenyatta’s vice president, Moi became president upon Kenyatta’s death and held a tight grip on power until protests forced him to hold elections in 1992. Moi won in 1992 and held power for another 10 years. Ruto, from the same small Kalenjin ethnic group as Moi and a member of the same evangelical Christian denomination, worked his way up as a protégé of the president.
When Moi retired and chose Uhuru Kenyatta, son of the former president, as his successor, Ruto remained loyal to KANU and supported its candidate. Uhuru, as he’s called to differentiate himself from his father, lost that race to challenger Mwai Kibaki. KANU basically fell apart, leaving Ruto in the political wilderness.
A chaotic return to politics
Uhuru and Ruto made a comeback through an infamous series of events. The 2007 presidential election was bitterly disputed, with then-incumbent President Kibaki accused of rigging his narrow reelection win.
Violence between supporters of Kibaki and those of his opponent, Raila Odinga — son of the former vice president — lasted for months and led to more than a thousand people being killed across the country. Uhuru and Ruto, supporters of Kibaki and Raila respectively, were eventually accused of being masterminds behind the violence and brought up on charges by the International Criminal Court.
It was this indictment that brought Uhuru and Ruto back together as they teamed up to defend themselves. Their condemnation of the ICC — which they painted as Western interference in Kenyan affairs — led to a winning Uhuru/Ruto presidential ticket, again defeating Raila. With Uhuru and Ruto leading Kenya, the ICC case against them collapsed.
Political divides remain within Kenya
As VP, Ruto was intended to be set up as the next presidential candidate. But, Uhuru surprised the public and the vice president by making up with Raila and supporting him over Ruto in this election. In the end, Ruto managed to defeat Raila by painting himself as a political outsider and a champion of the average Kenyan. Unlike Uhuru and Odinga, who were born into elite political families, Ruto claimed to be representing “those at the bottom of the pyramid” of Kenyan society.
Ruto’s win has already generated controversy. Four of the seven members of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, including its Vice Chair Juliana Cherera, dissented from the announcement. They criticized how the election results were decided but didn’t give details on why they were skeptical of the process.
Meanwhile, fights broke out at the auditorium where the official election results were announced, as angry Raila supporters refused to accept the stated outcome. Raila, who has now lost five elections in a row and who challenged his previous election loss in court, is expected to raise legal objections again. And the mysterious death of an election official has raised fears that political violence is returning to the country.
Despite all this, Ruto is promising to be a unifier who will govern in the best interests of all Kenyans. Given the deep divides in the country and his history as a shrewd and potentially dangerous partisan operative, he may have his work cut out for him convincing his political opponents and the country at large that he will be the leader that all Kenyans need at this moment. But his underdog win — the latest political comeback in his career — indicates that Ruto has the political skill and tenacity to govern the country.
