Gachagua 

Rigathi Gachagua’s attempted re-entry into national politics cloaked in opposition rhetoric is less about institutional renewal and more a return to authoritarian populism masked as regional mobilisation.

Wanja Maina’s open letter to Rigathi Gachagua is more than a personal rebuke. It is a piercing diagnostic of Kenya’s political culture and the fragility of democratic pluralism in a context where political leaders recycle themselves with little contrition and even less ideological evolution.

“An acquired taste,” Wanja Maina calls him, and that’s perhaps the most generous description anyone has offered Kenya’s former Deputy President-turned-political phoenix in recent months.

Gachagua’s latest venture, the launch of his Democracy for the Citizens Party (DCP), is styled as a new dawn. But there is nothing fresh about it. The man behind the curtain is the same one who, not long ago, occupied the second-highest office in the land and used it not to build institutions or deepen public accountability, but to entrench tribal patronage networks, harass dissenters, and centralise power in ways antithetical to the democratic spirit.

As Deputy President, Gachagua developed a political brand built on aggression, grievance, and a curious disdain for constitutional restraint. He openly declared that government was a reward for loyalists, not a service to citizens. His now-infamous “shareholding” metaphor, where public appointments and development funding were treated as dividends for ethnic and political loyalty,was not a slip of the tongue. It was a worldview. One that undermined the national ethos of equality, betrayed the spirit of devolution, and reduced public administration to a spoils system.

During his tenure, numerous Members of Parliament, particularly from Mt. Kenya, were subjected to pressure, intimidation, and character assassination for failing to align with his preferred political direction. Elected women leaders such as Martha Karua and Sabina Chege were publicly disparaged, not on policy grounds, but in deeply gendered and dismissive language. Youth leaders critical of the administration found themselves targeted, while county governments that resisted central influence were threatened with budgetary penalties. This is not a man who championed diversity of thought or political pluralism.

The Campaign to Erase Opposition

His strained relationship with Jubilee, and, by extension, with former President Uhuru Kenyatta, is well documented.

While claiming to defend Mt. Kenya interests, he spearheaded an aggressive campaign to delegitimize Jubilee leadership in the region. Political meetings were disrupted. Local administrators were coerced. A party that once had majority goodwill in the region was systematically hollowed out using the blunt instruments of state power and fear.

Now, having fallen out with the Kenya Kwanza power structure and been politically sidelined, Gachagua is attempting a strategic comeback, this time cloaked in the language of opposition, democracy, and regional unity.

But the pattern is strikingly familiar: undermine existing parties, demand that others cede space, and present himself as the sole custodian of Mt. Kenya's destiny.

Wanja Maina’s warning is apt: “You cannot stifle us then claim to liberate us.”

The Theory Behind the Tactics

From an academic standpoint, Gachagua’s politics align with what Fareed Zakaria once termed “illiberal democracy”: a system in which elected leaders subvert democratic norms, shrink civic space, and weaponize public institutions, all while claiming popular legitimacy. His leadership style also fits the mould of competitive authoritarianism, a term used by political scientists Levitsky and Way to describe regimes that appear democratic on paper but operate through coercion, co-optation, and systemic manipulation of opponents.

Furthermore, his rebrand follows a well-trodden path of political recycling described in African governance literature. As Prof. Nic Cheeseman notes in his analysis of African strongmen, many such figures seek rehabilitation not through reform or remorse, but by repositioning themselves as victims of the very systems they previously exploited.

It is also deeply cynical that Mr. Gachagua now courts the youth and Gen Z demographic, posing for pictures, quoting their lingo, invoking their activism, when, during their hour of need, he stood silently or actively emboldened the very apparatus that brutalized them.

During the 2023 and 2024 Mandamano protests, young people across Kibra, Kondele, Mombasa and Mathare were mercilessly beaten, teargassed, and in several tragic cases, killed. Gachagua, acting as the de facto head of state while President Ruto toured the globe, publicly praised the police and thanked them for their “firmness.” It was he who goaded then-Interior CS Kithure Kindiki to “deal firmly” with protestors, warning them that "government will not be threatened by children in the streets."

He has never returned to Kibra, Kondele, or Mombasa to offer a word of apology to the grieving mothers and fathers of those who were harmed or lost. No moment of national contrition. No acknowledgement of the trauma his administration inflicted. That he now attempts to align himself with youth energy and civic outrage is not just hypocrisy, it is political exploitation of memory and mourning.

A Dangerous Return

Gachagua’s record offers no evidence of ideological clarity or constitutional fidelity. He has not articulated a policy vision, nor has he acknowledged, let alone apologized for, the divisive tactics, tribal essentialism, or public misconduct associated with his past. His new project appears less about providing an alternative vision for Mt. Kenya, and more about reclaiming a platform from which to dictate political outcomes through familiar methods of polarization and pressure.

Kenya’s democracy cannot afford such regressions. The future of the Mt. Kenya region, and indeed the nation, must be shaped by leaders who embrace pluralism, tolerate criticism, respect institutions, and promote inclusion across all axes: gender, generation, class, and community.

 What Leadership Must Now Mean

Wanja Maina’s letter is an intervention on behalf of these values. It is not a rejection of Rigathi Gachagua as a person, but of the political culture he has embodied, a culture of force over persuasion, monopoly over plurality, and entitlement over service.

Kenya does not need another patriarch in search of a crown. It needs thoughtful, ethical, and humble leadership rooted in constitutionalism, not personality cults. If Mr. Gachagua insists on returning to the political table, he must first unlearn the habits that made his previous tenure so corrosive. He must “come correct,” as Wanja puts it, not as a saviour, but as a penitent practitioner of politics willing to work in a shared and accountable space.

Until then, the acquired taste he offers will continue to leave a bitter aftertaste, one the public is increasingly unwilling to stomach.

Gem Musings is a seasoned International Relations and Public Affairs Strategist with extensive experience in global diplomacy, communication, and policy analysis.