NAIROBI,Kenya Sep 20 – From the traditional shrines of Meru to Nembure in Embu and, finally, Kirigiti in Kiambu, Deputy President Kithure Kindiki is attempting to change the way Mt Kenya speaks politically with elders at the centre of the operation.

📻 Breaking It Down

For several weeks, Public Service Cabinet Secretary Geoffrey Ruku carried an axe around Mt Kenya that he wielded it as a political metaphor, threatening to split the Mountain into East and West if leaders from the western counties refused to recognise Deputy President Kithure Kindiki as the region’s political spokesman and support President William Ruto.

On Saturday, the axe was finally surrendered.At Kirigiti Stadium in Kiambu, elders from Mt Kenya East and West took the weapon from Ruku and handed him a flywhisk, directing him to preach reconciliation and unity instead.

The axe had been used to dramatise the most contentious question to emerge in Mt Kenya politics ahead of the 2027 General Election,whether the region should remain a single political bloc or whether Mt Kenya East should chart a separate course from the West.

📌 What You Need to Know

Its return marked the latest turn in a campaign that has steadily shifted from splitting the Mountain to deciding who has the authority to speak for it.

The elders meeting at Kirigiti endorsed the Deputy President as spokesman and representative of the wider Mt Kenya region, pledging to advance its interests and aspirations.

The declaration brought together representatives of Kiama Kia Ma, the Kikuyu Council of Elders, Njuri Ncheke, Kiama Kia Muembu, Ngome and Nyangi Ndiriri.

For President Ruto’s political camp, the endorsement offers a new route into a region where the President has faced a serious political backlash since his fallout with former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.

For Kindiki, it potentially offers something even bigger an opportunity to move from being the political leader of Mt Kenya East to claiming a mandate to speak for the entire Mountain.

Political analyst Arnold Maliba describes this as the central shift in the strategy that distinction helps explain why the Deputy President has increasingly allowed elders rather than politicians to occupy the foreground of his Mt Kenya campaign .

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya