Gearing Up for a Rematch Between Uhuru and Ruto in 2027 Elections

A couple of weeks ago, I had guests from a neighboring East African country that had just gone through a bruising presidential election campaign. They couldn’t help noticing that, even though we are 17 months away from the 10 August 2027 general election, the country is gripped by political campaign fever and looks as though it is heading into an election in 17 weeks.

The heightened electoral campaigning, disguised on weekends as church services and consecrations, has now become commonplace. Church and funeral services are the new sites of realpolitik.

This is nothing new. During Daniel arap Moi’s tyranny and Kanu’s one-party rule, opposition politics was conducted from church pulpits and at funeral gatherings. The difference today is that even incumbent President William Ruto has taken to the pulpit to admonish and verbally attack real and perceived opponents of his gradually evolving tyrannical rule, which is reminiscent of the days of his political godfather, Moi.

Is Ruto a reincarnation of the brutal dictator Moi?

Yet the most interesting development is the gradual assembling of troops by the protagonists, ready to do battle in a presidential contest that looks, in both shape and form, like a rematch between former President Uhuru Kenyatta and President Ruto, his deputy between 2013 and 2022.

The question of the day among Kenya’s political observers is this: Are we gearing up for a second-round battle royal, disguised as a supposedly democratic contest among presidential candidates, but which is, in reality, another elite fight to settle scores between two powermongers? One is a former president; the other is a president clutching at straws as he considers how to outmanoeuvre his opponents yet again, if luck allows.

Soon after the 9 March 2018 handshake between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Amolo Odinga, it became evident that Uhuru and Raila, who died on 15 October 2025, would henceforth work hand in glove, not only to stabilise the country politically but also, possibly, to craft a working formula for Uhuru’s succession in 2022.

Deputy President Ruto, who was bitterly opposed to Raila being invited to the presidential table, as it were, essentially became the outsider.

The presidential elite’s squabbles had begun. They culminated in an electoral battle in which Ruto defeated former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s preferred candidate, the late Raila Amolo Odinga, in the first round of the 2022 presidential election.

For Azimio to resurrect, Raila had to die

On 2 February 2026, Uhuru, who is the chairman of the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya Coalition Party, breathed new life into what was slowly becoming a moribund coalition following its defeat by Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza team.

After chairing a joint meeting of Azimio’s council and national executive committee, he appointed Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka of the Wiper Patriotic Front (WPF) as the new party leader.

Other key appointments included former Nairobi Town Clerk Philip Kisia as executive director and, most significantly, Suba South ODM MP Caroli Omondi as secretary general, replacing Junet Mohammed, the ODM MP for Suba East. Until Raila’s death, Junet had been his loyal right-hand man and protégé.

With that clever move, Uhuru signaled his desire to navigate the country’s electoral politics indirectly while sidestepping political landmines. He has begun aligning his troops in readiness for war in 2027.

Why did Uhuru resuscitate a dying Azimio coalition? Before we pose that question, however, we must ask: Did Raila have to die for Azimio to live?

Let’s put it differently: For Azimio to resurrect, Raila had to die.

Uhuru’s new pet project

There are several reasons why Uhuru revived Azimio.

First, he hopes to create a home for the United Opposition. As currently constituted, the United Opposition is an amalgam of disparate political parties that do not have a place to call home. Uhuru would very much like the United Opposition to join Azimio. This would allow him to exercise his political influence and financial power.

Second, he hopes to provide a safe haven for the “renegade” Edwin Sifuna-led ODM faction, which is at odds with the Oburu Odinga and Gladys Wanga-led faction that has decided to back the broad-based government (BBG).

Third, he wants to subtly tell all and sundry that his erstwhile super Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiang’i, is not really his preferred presidential candidate. Matiang’i, who has been branded Uhuru’s project, has always, in my view, been a ruse used by Uhuru to blindside Ruto.

Fourth, he wants to tame the impeached former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who has arrogated to himself the role of Mt. Kenya Muthamaki.

Last but not least, he wants to install Kalonzo as the de facto opposition presidential flag bearer.

By naming Kalonzo to the position previously occupied by the late Raila, who was the Azimio coalition’s party leader and presidential flag bearer in 2022, Uhuru is effectively hoping to wrest Kalonzo from Gachagua’s clutches while plotting to regain his pre-eminent position as the Mt. Kenya Muthamaki (leader-patron). He still looks back nostalgically on his anointment as the Central Kenya spokesman by the late John Njoroge Michuki in 2010.

The reorganization means that Kalonzo will effectively become Uhuru’s “pet project”, much as Raila, who chose to work with Uhuru in 2022, was perceived to have been.

It was easy to install Kalonzo because he served as Raila’s running mate in 2013 and 2017. Although he was passed over for that role in 2022, Kalonzo still stuck with Raila.

The Ocampo Six

Two days after Uhuru reorganized his battalion, Ruto summoned all UDA aspirants to State House, likewise to “troop the color" and signal his readiness to consolidate his power in 2027.

Both Ruto and Uhuru desire to control the levers of the state and, in essence, capture the state itself. Both the incumbent and his predecessor are engaged in elite political games that began in 2012, when they were jointly identified as members of the “Ocampo Six” by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Ocampo Six emerged after the country experienced the 2007–2008 post-election violence (PEV), one of the darkest moments in post-independence Kenya. Names from across the political divide were handed over to the court in The Hague by the government of national unity (GNU) of Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, who assumed the position of non-executive prime minister in 2008.

Proxy war

The coming together of Uhuru and Ruto in the lead-up to the 2013 election had nothing to do with the people, much less the country’s national interests. Their alliance was driven by their quest for survival at the ICC and political survival at home through the politics of balkanisation and ethnic mobilization.

They captured power by defeating Raila’s Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD).

For the first five years, Uhuru delegated presidential powers to his deputy, Ruto, instead of delegating duties. Ruto took the opportunity to popularize himself and penetrate the state machinery.

In the second half of the UhuRuto regime, it became obvious that the mantra *kumi yangu, kumi ya Ruto* (“10 for me, 10 for Ruto”) was as dead as a dodo and would not be honored.

There’s no honor among quarrelling political elites who are constantly engaged in power grabs and powermongering.

Uhuru and Ruto are two sides of the same coin. Their elite quarrel is about capturing and retaining absolute power. Because Uhuru is barred by the constitution from running again for the presidency and from actively engaging in elective politics, he is fighting his 2027 battle with Ruto through proxies.

That’s why he is apparently aligning his troops for a rematch in a year and a half.

Elite games

In 2018, Uhuru, as the incumbent serving his final term, entered into an elite pact with Raila, his political arch-enemy, that would have Raila succeed him.

This move was not an awakening of nationalist principles in the interests of the Kenyan people. Rather, Uhuru wanted a president who would be friendly to his personal and business interests.

So, he crafted a coalition with Raila’s Azimio and became its chairman, while Raila became a presidential flag bearer for the fifth time. Uhuru hoped to retain power through Raila’s presidency.

The sudden shift in bromance from UhuRuto to UhuRaila wasn’t because Uhuru had experienced a reawakening, nor was Raila embracing Uhuru because he had had a Damascus moment.

They were engaging in time-tested elite games centered on consolidation and survival, rather than improving the living standards of the electorate, they use as a stepping stone to power.

Uhuru and Raila were therefore not conspiring against Ruto because he apparently had a hideous agenda to monopolise state power, just as they themselves were plotting to do. They were engaging in the politics of deception and subterfuge.

A wake-up call

The 64-million-dollar question is this: As Uhuru and his nemesis Ruto plot another round of their elite political game, where is the voter? Where does their game leave the people of Kenya?

By the end of 2022, the score was Ruto one, Uhuru nil.

Soon after the general election, the electorate realized it had been played. The political mandarins were not interested in the people’s welfare but in advancing their nested elite games.

Nothing suggests that 2027 will be any different. If anything, these games will become even more vicious. The people will again be reduced to cogs in a wheel and spectators in a game of thrones designed to make them choose their preferred oppressive elite.

The time is now for a party that hopes to win hearts and minds by centering its program on the people. The people are thirsting for just such a party.

The Gen Z protests of 25 June 2024 were a wake-up call from an emerging demographic expressing its frustration with legacy politicians, their lies, and the never-ending deceptive games that have continued to drown the people’s aspirations.