Victory for William Ruto, Kenya’s self-made ‘hustler’

“Save for a few mostly inconsequential skirmishes, and one unfortunate murder”, Kenya’s presidential election campaign had passed pretty smoothly, said The EastAfrican (Nairobi). The race, which pitted deputy president William Ruto against the veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, was largely free of the violence that has marred previous polls in Kenya. “There was no overt abuse of incumbency” or “harassment of opponents or their agents” as the ballots were cast and counted, slowly, over six days.

But when Ruto was declared the winner, “chaos erupted”, said Peter Fabricius in Daily Maverick (Johannesburg). “Fistfights broke out on the stage of the official counting centre, two electoral commissioners were injured and four dissociated themselves from the results, saying the final counting had been ‘opaque’.”

It was a narrow victory: Ruto, representing the Kenya Kwanza Alliance, won 50.5% of the vote, while Odinga, of the One Kenya Coalition Party, was awarded 48.8%. Odinga will challenge it in court but, barring any shocks, Ruto looks set for the presidency. In a victory speech, he vowed to “look to the future”, and thanked his “boss”, outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta, who had turned against him and backed Odinga during the campaign.

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This “knife-edge” race was cast as a battle between “hustlers” and political “dynasties”, said Maureen Kinyanjui in The Star (Nairobi). While Odinga and Kenyatta are sons of Kenyan independence heroes, the triumphant Ruto is a rags-to-riches figure. As a barefooted schoolboy, he sold chickens by the side of the road; yet he later became one of Kenya’s wealthiest businessmen, acquiring a massive chicken plant and a luxury hotel.

“On the campaign trail, Ruto skilfully avoided ethnicity, a major factor in Kenyan politics,” said Eromo Egbejule and Immaculate Akello on Al Jazeera (Doha). Instead, the God-fearing teetotaller “framed the narrative as a class war between the haves and have-nots”.

He pushed a populist “Kenya First” programme, and weaponised his country’s high unemployment, promising to grow the economy from the bottom up. His strategy of getting “Kenyans to vote to protect their bellies and not their blood ties” has paid off: for the first time, millions of voters crossed ethnic lines.

An eloquent politician with a “prodigious ability to organise and inspire”, Ruto may prove a capable leader, said The Economist. “But he also has the whiff of the strongman about him.” After disputed elections in 2007, he was charged by the International Criminal Court with helping to instigate violent clashes that killed more than 1,300 people. And while the case was later suspended, the court “pointedly declined to acquit” Ruto, noting claims of witness intimidation.

He has also been “dogged by allegations of corruption”. Kenya has been on the up in recent years, said Charles Onyango-Obbo in Nation (Nairobi). Access to education and electricity is rising, and economic growth has been steady. But most Kenyans aren’t yet feeling the benefits. Ruto has convinced voters for now – but as food prices soar and a debt crisis looms, he has a very tough job ahead of him.