Ruto launches Mt Kenya recovery bid ahead of 2027 election

President William Ruto is working to rebuild his standing in Mt Kenya, a region that once gave him overwhelming support but has grown distant since his deputy's removal from office. In the 2022 presidential election, the mountain delivered 87 percent of its votes to Ruto. That was a decisive mandate. But in October 2024, Ruto's deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua, was impeached. Since then, Gachagua has waged an aggressive campaign against his former boss, and Mt Kenya has drifted steadily away from Ruto's United Democratic Alliance. Gachagua's own party, the Democracy for the Citizens Party, has gained ground across the mountain and into Nairobi and Narok counties. The shift became visible in July 2026, when the DCP won the Ol-Kalou by-election—a result widely read as evidence that Ruto has lost the region.

With less than a year until the August 2027 general election, Ruto has mobilized a campaign apparatus to reclaim the territory. Government officials and allied politicians have been deployed to Mt Kenya West—the counties of Nyeri, Murang'a, Kirinyaga, Nyandarua, and parts of Laikipia—where Ruto faces his steepest resistance. Mt Kenya East, comprising Embu, Tharaka Nithi, and Meru, remains more favorable to him. The strategy is to convince voters that the mountain remains central to Ruto's administration and that Gachagua's impeachment was a personal matter, not a rejection of the region itself.

In early September 2026, Public Service Cabinet Secretary Geoffrey Ruku and Energy Principal Secretary Alex Wachira traveled to Nyeri county to make this case. They were joined by local MPs Wambugu Wainaina and Eric Wamumbi. Ruku's message was direct: the mountain has not been abandoned. He pointed to the cabinet positions held by people from Mt Kenya West—Agriculture Secretary Mutahi Kagwe, Alice Wahome in Lands and Housing, William Kabogo in ICT, and Lee Kinyanjui in Trade and Industry—alongside several principal secretaries. Mt Kenya East, by contrast, has only two cabinet secretaries: Ruku himself and Eric Mugaa in Water and Irrigation. Ruku argued that this distribution proves the west remains well-represented and that anyone claiming the community has been shut out of government is spreading falsehoods.

But Ruku also issued a warning. If Mt Kenya West continued to oppose Ruto, he said, he would escalate calls to divide the mountain's vote between east and west. "There is no way the west can continue chanting Wantam and cheering a divisive man like Gachagua yet most of the development projects have been implemented in this side of the mountain," he said, suggesting that further opposition would mean the east would consolidate its support for Ruto and reap the benefits of government investment.

That threat of division provoked immediate pushback from within Ruto's own coalition. MP Eric Wamumbi rejected the divisive rhetoric, arguing that Mt Kenya would only be taken seriously as a political force if it remained united. He urged leaders to resist attempts to split the region, saying it could accommodate different political views while maintaining cohesion. "This house has many rooms," he said. "Let us have the mountain under one house and have many rooms, but as the Mt Kenya community let us stay united." Principal Secretary Wachira also rejected the split, though he offered a different explanation for the tension. He suggested that some leaders in the west were struggling to accept that the deputy president's position was now held by someone from the east—a reference to Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, who is from Mt Kenya East.

Ruto himself has repeatedly denied that he owes his Mt Kenya support to Gachagua. In April 2026, speaking in Nyeri, he told residents: "Nobody brought me here. My relationship with the mountain spans over 20 years and I cannot abandon the people who made me President." That claim is now being tested. The campaign machinery is in place. The message is being delivered. But the region's response remains uncertain, and even within Ruto's own team, there is disagreement about whether the path forward runs through unity or division.