How Anne Waiguru's new move complicates Riggy G's Mt Kenya arithmetic
Opinion
By
Benjamin Wafula
| Dec 20, 2025
Governor Anne Waiguru’s speech during Jamhuri Day celebrations in Kirinyaga has stirred a political storm and thrown a wrench into the Opposition’s strategy in Mt Kenya.
The message was: “As the people of Mt Kenya, we want to stay in Government. I have listened to the people, and I believe we will benefit more from inside. I urge those who had ditched the government for the opposition to come back.” She further articulated her plans to make Kirinyaga the epicentre of Mt Kenya politics and snatch the vote-rich region from impeached Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
“I am ready to speak on your behalf with others about a working arrangement. We are in the two-term movement; we will be negotiating for seats for our people,” she remarked.
This places her at loggerheads with Gachagua, who has been propping himself up as Mt Kenya Kingpin, trying to wrestle the baton from former President and Jubilee party leader Uhuru Kenyatta. In a TV interview in October, Gachagua said of former President Uhuru: “We have two leaders, one is the past, the other is the present and the future.”
Chief Justice Martha Koome, in her recent interview, made it clear that Gachagua is constitutionally barred from running for an elective seat following his impeachment. With this in mind, the DCP leader may be seeking to use Mt Kenya as a bargaining chip and his ticket to a safe landing by hawking its votes to Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka. Just last week, he promised to deliver 7 million votes from Mt Kenya to Kalonzo in 2027, ostensibly denying Ruto, who is seeking re-election, victory. The split in standing between Gachagua and Waiguru, therefore, puts Mt Kenya, which gave President Ruto 3.5 million votes out of his total of 7.1 million votes, at the centre of the 2027 arithmetic.
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This is the first time Governor Waiguru has openly announced her support for Ruto’s re-election, after months of “listening to the ground” as she often puts it, to signify taking time to understand political terrains and speak to the people on the ground and listen to which direction they would want a leader to take.
It is the same phrase she used when she decided to jump ship from Jubilee to UDA in 2022, a move that boosted her re-election bid. Could it be that her overt support for Ruto’s re-election is what people of Mt Kenya West are saying? Will her entry into the inner sanctum of Ruto’s campaign team finally grant the President the impetus needed to win back Central?
Now, in her second and final term as governor, it is not yet clear which seat Waiguru will be seeking, with earlier speculation pointing to a senatorial bid, like five other second-term governors before her. She may also be eyeing a slot in the post-2027 cabinet or a senior role in government. The political camaraderie between Waiguru and Ruto became glaring at the beginning of the second term of Jubilee’s reign, with the then DP gracing her inauguration ceremony, before making six more stops in Kirinyaga.
Waiguru’s roots in three counties in Central Kenya work to her advantage in the region’s political landscape - Kirinyaga, where she has served as governor for eight years, Kiambu, where she has lived for decades, and Murang’a, where she is married.
For a bleeding opposition scathed by the losses in recently held parliamentary by-elections, every voice, especially from leaders of Waiguru’s stature, matters. Her rejection of their overtures and her promise to use her political networks to campaign for Ruto is therefore a gut punch to the Opposition.
-The writer is a political communication strategist. @benjaminwafula