The dazzling rise of Kenya’s fifth president William Samoei Ruto

William Samoei Ruto of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Party is Kenya’s President-elect and will be sworn in on September 13, 2022.

A ruling by the Supreme Court of Kenya on Monday, September 5, upheld the election of William Ruto in the August 9 polls.

It dismissed a petition by his close rival Raila Odinga of the Azimio la Umoja coalition, who moved to court on August 22, challenging the win of William Ruto.

On August 15, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) declared Ruto President-elect after garnering 7,176,141 against his closest rival Raila Odinga, who received 6,942,930 votes.

Whether by luck or a political charm offensive that he posed to the electorates under the Hustler Nation mantle, Ruto’s meteoric rise will be counted among African leaders who clinched the Presidency on the first attempt.

Born in Kamagut village, Uasin Gishu County on December 21, 1966, the once staunch member of the Christian Union at the Nairobi University rose to become a politician to reckon.

William Ruto has in the past termed himself as a ‘child of nobody’ since he was not born in a wealthy family, or from a political class, a rallying call he used to endear himself to the masses.

He is married to Rachael Ruto and is a father of seven children.

After successfully pursuing a degree in Botany and Zoology at the University of Nairobi, he would start off his career as a teacher in the North Rift region.

But his ‘baby steps’ in the political arena were largely linked to Kenya’s second President, Daniel Arap Moi.

The year 1992 was pivotal for Ruto after he became treasurer of the Youth for KANU YK92 - a campaign group that lobbied for President Daniel arap Moi’s re-election.

Five years later in 1997, Ruto tried his hand at the Eldoret North parliamentary seat, beating the incumbent MP Rueben Chesire.

Attracting the attention of the Professor of politics, Ruto was appointed by Moi himself to become KANU’s director of elections in 1998.

In 2002, Ruto was part of the team that worked on propelling Uhuru Kenyatta on to the national political scene to succeed Moi.

The KANU camp would however suffer a bruising defeat to the NARC Coalition, whose candidate Mwai Kibaki took office as Kenya’s third president.

Ruto kept rising through the ranks, reaching KANU’s top brass when he was elected Secretary General in 2005.

A year later in 2006, he aimed for the sky when he declared that he would vie for the presidecy and crossed over to ODM to fight for the ticket. His dreams were shattered when came third after Musalia Mudavadi and Raila Odinga - who clinched the party ticket.

He would however contest for the Eldoret North MP seat once again and win. Ruto was instrumental in helping Raila’s ODM clinch a majority of elective positions in Rift Valley during the 2007 General Election that turned out to be Kenya’s most violent.

In 2016, Ruto and Uhuru merged their parties to form the Jubilee Alliance, a party that saw re-elected in 2017 against a backdrop of a cloud of controversy that included the nullification of results of the first round and a rerun boycotted by the opposition.

Following a political truce in the form of a handshake between President Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga, Ruto would become more and more isolated in his second term as the Deputy President.

The rift would grow after the Building Bridges Initiative picked up pace and the two eventually fell out.

Ruto would lament about the political isolation from his boss Uhuru Kenyatta, saying that his roles were delegated to Raila and other members of the cabinet.

The isolation would see Senators and Member of National Assemblies allied to Ruto purged from their senior positions in the legislative houses.

In 2021, Ruto broke ties with the Uhuru-led Jubilee Party and declared his affiliation to the United Democratic Alliance (UDA), a party he would eventually convert to be his political vehicle to vie for President under the Kenya Kwanza Coalition umbrella.

As a result of the strained relationship between him and Ruto, Uhuru fronted Raila Odinga as his preferred successor in the run up to the 2022 General Election.

This, would leave William Ruto criticizing him for being what he called ‘a project of the state.’