HUSTLER IN A HURRY

Kenya: William Ruto’s bold run for presidency

By Son Gatitu

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Posted on July 6, 2021 11:59

United Nations Kenya VP Attack © Kenya’s Vice President William Ruto addressing the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters in New York city in 2016.  (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
Kenya’s Vice President William Ruto addressing the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters in New York city in 2016. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

It takes chutzpah to launch a presidential campaign against the wishes of the country’s oldest and best funded dynasties – the Kenyattas and the Odinga clan. But that is precisely what Deputy President William Ruto is doing.

It is an inside job. Ruto has been an ally of both President Uhuru Kenyatta and erstwhile opposition leader Raila Odinga, lending his brand of aggressive and energetic politics to support their presidential ambitions in the past. But not anymore.

As Ruto stakes out his claim to the presidency – with his populist campaign promoting the ‘hustler nation’ – he believes he knows the strengths and weaknesses of the dynasties, and how to take them on and win.

Ruto’s message is that as a ‘self-made’ man who didn’t benefit from the privileges of the Kenyatta and Odinga dynasties, he empathises with the struggles of the average Kenyan. With that, he’s opened a class war dimension to the coming elections.

Whether Kenya, where the main political schisms are about ethnic and regional identity not class and inherited wealth, is ready for this is another matter. There are also questions about the sour

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