Politics has a habit of producing strange moments. Leaders who appear invincible suddenly become vulnerable. Coalitions that once looked permanent begin to crack. Those who were dismissed as irrelevant become indispensable. Kenya may well be approaching such a moment.
President William Ruto enters the final stretch towards the 2027 General Election carrying political burdens that did not exist in 2022. The economic optimism that accompanied his election has been replaced by widespread frustration. Families are struggling with the high cost of living. Businesses complain about heavy taxation and shrinking purchasing power. Young people who believed they would inherit an economy of opportunity instead find themselves confronting unemployment and uncertainty.
No serious political observer can deny that the President is more politically vulnerable today than he was four years ago. But vulnerability alone has never removed a government from office. History teaches a different lesson. Governments often survive not because they have performed well, but because those seeking to replace them fail to unite.
Kenya has a painful experience with this reality. In both the 1992 and 1997 elections, many Kenyans wanted political change after years of KANU rule. Yet the opposition fragmented into competing camps, each convinced it deserved to lead. Personal ambition overtook collective purpose. Regional calculations replaced national strategy. The result was that President Daniel Arap Moi retained power despite facing a restless electorate.
The lesson from those elections remains as relevant today as it was then: a divided opposition is often the greatest ally of an unpopular incumbent. That lesson should occupy the minds of every opposition leader today. There is no shortage of capable leaders in the current opposition. There are experienced statesmen, youthful voices, respected professionals and energetic grassroots organizers. Diversity is an asset. But diversity becomes a liability when every leader insists that only they can occupy the top seat. The country is not looking for another competition of egos. It is looking for a credible alternative government.
That requires something far more difficult than public rallies. It requires discipline. It requires compromise. Above all, it requires recognizing the strategic value that different leaders bring to the coalition.
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President Ruto and Gachagua’s Link
This is where former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua becomes impossible to ignore. Whether one agrees with his politics or not, one cannot deny his significance. Rigathi Gachagua is not merely another opposition politician seeking relevance. He is a man who helped construct the very political machine that carried William Ruto to State House.
He understands how that machine was assembled. He knows how alliances were negotiated, how regional networks were built, how mobilization was organized and how political messaging was crafted. Few people possess such intimate knowledge of President Ruto’s political architecture. That experience alone makes him strategically important. Yet there is another dimension that may prove even more consequential.
Gachagua is not speaking as someone who watched events from outside government. He speaks as someone who occupied one of the highest offices in the land before finding himself isolated and ultimately removed from the political centre of the administration he helped establish. Whatever interpretation one gives to those events, they profoundly altered his political outlook.
His message now resonates with many people who feel they, too, invested hope in the Kenya Kwanza project only to experience disappointment. That shared sense of betrayal has become a powerful political currency. It explains why his rallies continue attracting attention. It explains why attempts to dismiss him as merely a regional leader have repeatedly failed. It explains why his influence extends beyond formal political structures.
The greatest mistake the opposition could make would be to reduce him to a Mt Kenya issue. He is far more than that. He represents a bridge between voters who once strongly supported President Ruto and those who now feel disillusioned. Very few opposition figures possess that unique political reach. Ignoring such an asset would not simply be unwise. It would be strategically self-defeating.
Equally important is recognizing that no single leader can defeat an incumbent president alone. Not Gachagua. Not Kalonzo Musyoka. Not Fred Matiang’i. Not Martha Karua. Not Edwin Sifuna. Not Eugene Wamalwa. Not the Gen Z movement. Not civil society.
Each commands influence within different constituencies. Each brings strengths the others lack. The challenge is not identifying who matters most. The challenge is building a coalition in which every significant player feels respected, valued and invested in the common objective. That objective must remain larger than individual ambition.
President Ruto understands coalition politics better than many of his opponents appreciate. Throughout his political career, he has demonstrated remarkable skill in identifying divisions among rivals and exploiting them to his advantage. He does not necessarily need to recover the popularity he has lost. He only needs the opposition to spend the next year quarrelling over positions, endorsements, running mates and succession arrangements.
Every week consumed by internal rivalry is a week available for the government to rebuild alliances, deploy state resources, make strategic appointments and reshape the political conversation. Time, in politics, is often more valuable than money. That is why the opposition must resist the temptation of premature competition.
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2027 Presidential Candidates Selection
The first question should not be, “Who will be president?” The first question should be, “How do we build the broadest possible alliance capable of winning?”
Candidate selection can come later through an agreed, transparent and credible process. The immediate task is unity. Unity does not require uniformity. Leaders will disagree. Supporters will have different preferences. Healthy debate is inevitable. But those differences must never become more important than the shared mission. If Kenyans conclude that opposition leaders are more interested in fighting each other than solving national problems, public confidence will quickly evaporate.
The 2027 election will not simply be a contest between William Ruto and one opposition candidate. It will be a contest between two competing political cultures. One will argue for continuity. The other must demonstrate that it has the maturity, discipline and unity required to govern.
In that larger struggle, Rigathi Gachagua occupies a pivotal place. His political experience, his understanding of the current administration, and his influence among voters who once formed the backbone of Kenya Kwanza make him a central figure in any credible strategy to unseat President Ruto.
History may ultimately record that President Ruto’s greatest political challenge did not come from those who opposed him from the beginning, but from the trusted ally who once helped carry him to power and later became one of the architects of a united movement for change. If the opposition remembers the lessons of 1992 and 1997, it has an opportunity to write a different ending in 2027. If it forgets them, history may once again reward division rather than performance.
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