Ticking clock to 2027 elections fuels pressure on Ruto's presidency

President William Ruto is a worried man. His frantic political sorties across the country speak to a troubled political soul, a king anxious about the possibility of imminent separation from power.

 The President’s ended week’s trip to Nyeri in the wake of Uhuru Kenyatta’s political resurgence is among the clearest indicators that State House is not at ease. The fears run around perceptions that the Ruto presidency has so far been long on promissory words and short on tangible outputs. The promises vaporise as soon as they leave the lips. And now the President must rove across the country, to occupy and protect political space.

 The first quarter of 2026 has been a season of political gravitation and verbal execution, with focus on affordable housing and agriculture, two of the Kenya Kwanza government’s five strategic pillars of development. There has also been focus on SMEs, through the World Bank funded NYOTA programme that seeks to give opportunities to Kenyan youth to grow business, and financial independence.

 The trips have been largely silent on the digital economy pillar, while the fifth pillar, that of healthcare, has remained the source of contentious conversations that it was right from the start. The health hatchet man, Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale, has been at the centre of the latest controversy in health, fending off claims by former deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua, over 1.3 billion shillings that has allegedly been stolen, besides a lot more money claimed to have been embezzled by the political establishment. Gachagua has made a detailed exposé of alleged financial deal making, irregularities and illegalities. He has named individuals behind the alleged economic crimes. If true, these are the kinds of malfeasances that would jail ex-state officials after loss of power.

 Regardless of the validity and involvement by the individuals Gachagua named in a formal media address in Makueni, Ruto and Kenya Kwanza are in a messy place. It does not help them at all that their foremost adversaries are finding unity of purpose; even if that purpose is only to dislodge them from power. The arrival of Uhuru in the arena, and what looks like a thawing of relations between the former President and Gachagua, only thickens the plot for President Ruto. He must be a worried man.

 Yet, even if a leader in Ruto’s position does not worry in the ordinary sense other humans worry, he still must calculate. He may not panic like an ordinary mortal. Yes, his hands are on the levers of state power and public resources that can be mobilized for political purposes. Yet, he must still calculate when powerful forces align against him, and speak openly about removing him from the throne; to thunderous public cheers.

 Almost every event in the political arena in recent times, points to a worried Ruto, as the clock enters ticks away against his presidency. Like Julius Caesar, who tells his notables that he does not worry because he is always Caesar, Ruto must sometimes worry about the possibility of being dislodged when Kenya goes to the poll in August next year.

 The sustained effort to dislodge Kenya’s fifth President has pushed him to the ropes, causing him to cut across the country in panic and anger, saying unsavoury things, as his way of retaining political space and control. The initiative to frame the narrative is now with the opposition, with Ruto under pressure to remain in control. The Opposition has framed the agenda for public discourse for some time now, leaving the President to fend off one blow after the other.

 When Ruto lost his cool and went ballistic with unprintable words in Chwele in Bungoma County two weeks ago, Gachagua glowed with glee. He boasted that the opposition now had Ruto where they wanted him. He explained that they want him to lose self-control, to become angry and to say the kind of irate things he has been saying. They want him to stay out of his offices, in State House and in Harambee House, and instead wear himself out, by spewing anger at public rallies across the country.  In the process, Ruto is also expected to wear out the voting public, with his ubiquitous presence, and unending outbursts of anger.

 Already, his increased cross-country forays and caustic reactive messaging speak to a troubled political soul, sliding onto the back foot. Ruto’s tempo speaks to a deliberate political instinct that has been cultivated over the years. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And the going is getting worrisomely tough for the Kenyan president, with the undisguised return of his former boss, Uhuru Kenyatta.

 Technically, Uhuru should steer off direct engagement in politics as a retired president. In line with the President Retirement (Amendment) Act, 2013, Uhuru should not be urging opposition chiefs to hold together, to dethrone Ruto in the August 10, 2027 election. Nor should he be publicly reminding the people of his native Mt. Kenya region that they are now sowing the returns of obstinacy, having failed to listen to him when, in 2022, he advised them not to vote for Ruto.

 Uhuru has cautioned the people of the Mountain “not to repeat the mistake” that they made in 2022, by refusing to listen to him when he advised them not to vote for Ruto. The region nonetheless overwhelmingly voted for him, and not Raila Odinga and Martha Karua, who were Uhuru’s choice.

 In a more pointed engagement, Uhuru has also roasted Church leaders “for getting us where we are today,” he has alluded to the near “messianic” profile that some of them appeared to give Ruto in 2022. In short, Uhuru is no longer keeping his head under the water. He is towering above the surface, taking on the William Ruto bull by the horns, for better or worse.

 Uhuru is a hugely formidable opponent, even when he is only the prime mover behind the opposition, rather than the opposition candidate that he cannot be. More daunting is the fact that he appears to be patching up things with Gachagua, the one man in the Mountain with axes to grind with Ruto; and who has vowed that Ruto must go into early retirement next year.

 Solidarity between Ruto and Gachagua signals political danger for Ruto in the one region of the country that gave him the single largest regional vote. Loss of the Mountain closely mirrors the actual loss of the entire election, for Ruto, or for whoever else may be on that ballot paper. Hence, in the wake of Uhuru’s meeting with opposition chiefs, Ruto swiftly swung into the region, to reassure the electorate that he was still interested in partnership with the people.

 Ruto’s big dilemma during such forays is absence of tangible projects to show for his four years in office. In Kakamega, he “inspected rehabilitation and expansion of the Kakamega airstrip.” The rehabilitation of this airstrip, like that of Panpaper Mills in Webuye, and Mumias Sugar Factory, is a political singsong. Word on the ground is that these entities are the proverbial local political straws that drowning outsiders clutch at, by way of currying favour with the locals.

 In the case of Ruto, Western Kenya residents have waited for the past three-and-a-half years for construction of 1,000 km of bitumen roads. This expectation is in line with the coalition agreement of January 2022, that UDA entered with Musalia Mudavadi’s ANC party, and Moses Wetang’ula’s Ford Kenya. While President Ruto has made an average of ten annual visits to the region since 2022, the efforts have not gone beyond good words.

 There was also the promise of three brand new vegetable and fruit processing factories, among many other goodies. Instead, the Ruto jamborees in Western usually end around roadshows, stentorian promissory speeches, broadsides against adversaries, watching football, and launching projects without  commencement timelines. The spinoff is that the ground is disillusioned.

 In Busia, for example, Ruto “launched” road projects that include Shibale-Nasewa-Matayos road. Also known as Matayos-Namwitsula Bridge-Nasewa, this is a Busia County Government project. It is a 13 kilometre affair, estimated to cost the county kitty Sh 545 million, and will probably be ready in 2028. Ordinarily, it should be launched by the county government. Yet, such assignments provide opportunities for Ruto to make forays into the countryside, with claims that his government is delivering on its promises. Seven other roads in Busia County fall in the same promissory docket, under the aegis of the Kenya Rural Roads Authority.

 This scenario repeats itself across the country. In Siaya, the President outlined multi-billion shilling projects, to great acclaim. They include a proposed eight new roads project. It is not clear whether this outlining of futuristic road construction was itself a launch, or whether the launch will follow, in the coming days.

 In Nakuru County, the President attended the 2026 Safari Rally in Naivasha. In Meru, he inspected road projects that included  rejigging stalled road projects, a bypass that seeks to decongest traffic in Meru town, and Nithi bridge, whose construction was expected to begin in February this year.

 In a nutshell, the presidential outings have mostly been around inspection or launching rural roads and markets, both of which are county government functions. When it has not been this, focus has instead been on giving youth NYOTA funds. The “launches” and “inspections” have, however, been the excuses rather than the reasons taking President Ruto across the country. For the trips have been around assignments that could be engaged in at far junior levels, and on more friendly budgets to the public coffers.

 It is a smart way of maintaining visibility, however, provided that the electorate does not become president-fatigued; and provided too, that tangible development outputs could be seen. Finally, the trips must also come with disciplined public discourse that shows respect both for the Office of the President and for the audience. So far, public rally pronouncements by President Ruto, and his adversaries alike, have shown little respect for public discourse, for their own public image, and for the public.

 That these appearances have lacked dignity and decorum speaks to desperation and anxiety about next year’s elections. It is unlikely that the outings are going to decrease, nor is verbal invective likely to tone down, despite pleas to the contrary. Ruto places the noose around his political neck, should he go slow on his early campaigns. The opposition is out there in the field, doing the only thing it can do. Ruto has no choice but to join them on counter-offensive missions. In the process, he makes it as murky as he gets it. Kenyans should, accordingly, expect more dirty drama, rather than common decency.

 The return of Uhuru is set to sharpen and deepen the invective, on account of the fear Uhuru generates in Kenya Kwanza. Even when he has not been so visible, there has been occasional political insolence directed his way. He has been accused of “funding the opposition,” as Siaya Governor, James Orengo, recently told him, and of “undermining” the Ruto regime.

 But Uhuru, the one man Ruto loves to hate, is no pushover. Nor is he the kind of person to politically intimidate. Ruto, too, is no pushover. His forays have enabled him to personalize political space across the country, at the expense of the national kitty. He requires another political giant to counterbalance him, and to rejig the political opposition.

 Put together with fresh energy from the Orengo-Sifuna-Babu fronted Team Linda Mwananchi, as well as the Gen-Z Niko Kadi campaign, the anti-Ruto energies cannot be taken for granted. In a word, the 2027 election campaigns are now on in earnest. It does not matter what religious leaders, IEBC, or anybody else says.  The players already blew the whistle, ahead of the referee, and nobody is going to stop the match. The official whistle, next year, will only be a formal detail that will process the rest of the official stages. Otherwise the campaigns are on, and they are going to get increasingly loud, dirty, and messy.