As 'the Handshake' turns 5, will Raila, Ruto surprise Kenyans with yet another truce?

The Handshake followed political tensions in the country, occasioned by the 2017 General Election, where Raila rejected the final presidential results that placed him after Kenyatta.

As a result, Raila took an unofficial oath on January 30, 2018, when he was sworn in as the People’s President at Uhuru Park in Nairobi.

During the launch of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), Raila intimated that the Handshake was born out of a 19-hour meeting with his archrival and that it “was not easy”. 

“When we met with Mr Odinga we took tea for almost 45 minutes without having any discussion. All we could ask each other is how is home... how is your wife... how are the kids? There was nothing else we could talk about because of the anger from the insults we had been hurling at each other,” Uhuru shared. 

While the two buried their hatchet, Kenyatta's deputy William Ruto claimed that he was left out, and thereafter side-lined from the government.

The former president would later support Raila in the August 2022 General Election and heavily campaigned for him but his deputy William Ruto emerged as the winner. 

Today, as the Handshake marks 5 years, there are questions on whether Raila and Ruto will consider having a Handshake. 

The Azimio leader has maintained that he does not recognise Ruto’s presidency, something that Kenya Kwanza has described as a strategy to compel the President into a Handshake with Raila.

“Last time, he staged similar protests until he got himself into President Kenyatta and William Ruto’s government. Uhuru bought into his threats and let him into his handshake government and he wreaked it,” Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said on December 2022 after Raila announced that he would be holding public rallies countrywide. 

On his part, President Ruto has maintained that there will be no handshake between him and Raila, who “should take his rightful position as the opposition leader.”

“My friends, forget about handshake and do not tell us you do not want it, we can see you, we know you. We know your everyday tricks,” Ruto told the opposition in January 2023.

In February, Raila said that he is also not interested in a handshake with Ruto, nor has he held such talks with his emissaries.

Before the handshake with Uhuru, Raila had in 2008 also had a truce with his then-rival Mwai Kibaki, where the Constitution was amended to create the office of the opposition leader, which he occupied. 

This year, March 9 is not only a historical date in Kenyan politics, but also the day where eyes are on Raila over his planned mass action. 

On this date, the Azimio leader is expected to give a stand on advancing his resistance movement, following the lapse of a 14-day ultimatum that he gave Kenya Kwanza government.