Valentine’s Day date set for Uhuru, Gachagua handshake in move to consolidate Mt Kenya voting bloc

Retired President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua are set for a Valentine’s Day handshake in a bid to foster the unity of the Mount Kenya voting block in next year’s elections.

Rigathi was Uhuru’s personal assistant during his time as leader of the official opposition and as Deputy Prime Minister under the grand coalition government of Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga (2008 – 2013).

Sources have told Kurunzi News that the handshake will happen on the Valentine’s weekend, a day before a secretly planned retreat of the United Opposition principles to lock in strategies of maintaining a united front against President William Ruto.

Kurunzi News understands the meeting is also open to other aspirants of the presidential race, including former Chief Justice David Maraga and Roots Party leader George Wajackoyah.

The rifts in the Orange Democratic Movement that have seen Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna ousted as the party’s Secretary General have opened the door for the United Opposition to reap big from the ODM fallout.

DCP, DP to join Azimio

The Uhuru-Gachagua handshake follows several months of engagements in a bid to ensure Jubilee and DCP do not split the presidential vote which Ruto is massively hoping to see as he seeks re-election.

While details of the handshake that could be announced on Saturday remain scanty, it is understood that Riggy G’s party is ready to join a rejuvenated Azimio, that will also onboard Justin Muturi’s Democratic Party, among other parties that may include People’s Liberation Party of Martha Karua.

The PLP, then known as NARC-Kenya, was part of the Azimio coalition with Karua as Odinga’s running mate in the 2022 elections but they left the coalition in 2025 when ODM started their dalliance with Ruto’s UDA.

An Uhuru-Gachagua axis on one side galvanizes the vote-rich Mount Kenya region against Ruto to give the opposition a head-start going to next year’s elections.

Riggy G had initially hinted of a truce with Uhuru but serious cracks emerged after Jubilee picked Matiangi as its presidential flagbearer and elevated him to Deputy Party Leader.

“Riggy G took that to be Uhuru’s secret card to weaken DCP in Mount Kenya but a lot of work has gone into the talks to get to where the handshake has been agreed,” a source privy to the talks told Kurunzi News.

“In fact, Matiangi was believed to be a Ruto mole but all that seems to have been addressed to a point that the principles are now getting more and more comfortable with each other.”

Gachagua allies, including lawyer Ndegwa Njiru had openly dismissed Matiangi, saying he was a project who they could now work with. In response, Jeremiah Kioni, then Jubilee SG, turned the heat on Gachagua saying he could not be trusted as a genuine anti-Ruto campaigner.

At some point, when the talks had advanced considerably, Uhuru urged his troops to stop attacking Riggy G.

Wooing Maraga

During his US tour last week, Wiper Party Leader Kalonzo Musyoka, recently crowned Azimio party leader, said among the issues on the table at the retreat were whether to retain the Azimio name or craft a new one for their 2027 coalition outfit.

“What we are doing now is to invite other progressive minds to take up positions and redeem our country,” Kalonzo said at a townhall meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.

Uhuru is said to be the force behind the quest to bring all presidential aspirants together and is understood to be the one who has been leading the charm offensive to woo Maraga to join the united opposition. This is, he believes, will create the 2002 moment that saw Mwai Kibaki elected president with more than two thirds of the votes.

However, Maraga camp hardliners are strongly opposed to the ex-CJ joining the outfit, saying they have reservations with Matiangi’s record as Cabinet Secretary for Interior and Riggy G’s “shares” narrative when he was in office as Ruto’s deputy. According to sources, the Maraga hardliners argue that Matiangi and Gachagua have questions to answer regarding their commitment to human rights, rule of law fidelity to the constitution, something they argue is likely to taint Maraga’s image as a constitutionalist.

Speaking recently said in an interview with political commentator Herman Manyora, outspoken lawyer Miguna Miguna dismissed united opposition bigwigs Matiangi, Riggy G and Kalonzo Musyoka, saying they belonged to the status quo.

“Matiangi occupied public office for 10 years,” he told Manyora.

“The culture of impunity that Matiangi embodies, the kind of excesses that he exhibited, the kind of court orders that he defied basically present him as one of the worst abusers of power.”

Matiangi has maintained innocence and severally declared that he is ready to clear his name by appearing in a “public inquest on the River Yala bodies and Shakahola killings”. He says he is a law-abiding citizen, who believes in the rule of law and good governance, and that he been vindicated by the courts that determined he had not defied any court orders during his tenure as Interior CS.

Miguna has declared his interest in the presidency and it is unclear if he would be of the anti-Ruto unity equation, or if he has even been approached, at all.

Sifuna factor

The Matiangi-Gachagua critics are being prevailed on the basis that the risk of a Ruto return to State House “is more costly to the country than the price of working together as a united opposition”.

It remains to be seen if, following his ouster from ODM’s plum SG position, Sifuna will warm up to the United Opposition which has openly declared he belongs with them. It is also a case of wait-and-see if Maraga will appear at the two-day retreat scheduled to start on Sunday.

“The Sifuna factor is a major piece in the puzzle and we are waiting to see how they Kenya Moja team that also has Babu Owino, Caleb Amisi, and (James) Orengo, among others will react to the removal,” a United Opposition insider told Kurunzi News after Sifuna was removed as ODM SG.

“We were already doing our calculations with different probabilities and now that one of those has happened, things will move faster.”

Busia Senator Okiya Omtata and activist Boniface Mwangi are among the other State House race aspirants next year but it is not known which of the political formations they will align to and whether or not they have been invited to the retreat.

Omtata, a fierce public-interest litigator and judicial activist, has previously declared he will work with those whose ideological leaning and philosophy of governance converge.