Ruto Reveals Plans to Ditch Jubilee Party for UDA

Deputy President William Ruto says he is ready to ditch the ruling Jubilee Party ahead of next year’s general elections.

Speaking during an interview on Radio Citizen on Thursday, Ruto indicated that there has been a continued attempt to push him and his allies out of Jubilee in the past few years.

If he is locked out of the governing party, Ruto said he could use the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party to run in the 2022 presidential contest.

“If it gets to a point where they do not want us to be there in Jubilee, then we must have a different plan. You cannot wait to hit a wall. Going forward, if there is no agreement, then we will plan ourselves with UDA. We have built UDA in partnership with Jubilee. It is not us starting afresh. We are just going on with what we already have,” Ruto stated.

He added: “UDA and Jubilee are one. We have a coalition agreement with them and we have been working together.  If they break Jubilee, trying to make it a tribal party, we will build UDA as the national party we had hoped Jubilee will be.”

At the same time, the deputy president refused to rule out the possibility of working with ODM party leader Raila Odinga, insisting that their differences are not personal.

“Some people think I have problems with Raila. I do not. These differences are political. And there are things I agree with Raila. He is agreed on the need to form national parties and he is facing similar issues I am facing of regional chieftains. And I want to say this: If anybody wants to partner with us to bring up the hustler, we have no problem. We support, we will work together,” he added.