William Ruto was sworn in as Kenya’s fifth president on Tuesday, a week after the Supreme Court upheld an election that dashed the hopes of the nation’s most prominent political families and handed power to a man who began his career as a roadside chicken seller.
Ruto has been deputy to President Uhuru Kenyatta since 2013, but they fell out after the 2017 election. Kenyatta backed opposition leader Raila Odinga to succeed him in the August election and denounced Ruto as unfit for office.
Kenyatta finally publicly congratulated Ruto on the eve of his inauguration.”You will be president not just for those who voted for you but for all Kenyans,” he said.
Odinga had filed a court challenge accusing Ruto of cheating his way to victory, but the Supreme Court swept aside his petition alongside several others. It was the fifth time that Odinga, 77, had stood for election.
Odinga accepted the court’s decision, helping avoid the kind of violent protests that marred the elections he lost in 2007 and 2017. He did not attend the inauguration, however, and said on Monday that the election had not been free and fair.
Ruto, who served as deputy president for the past 10 years, takes over at a time of surging food and fuel prices, high unemployment and rising public debt.
Ruto, a 55-year-old former roadside chicken seller who is now a wealthy businessman, campaigned by portraying himself as an underdog “hustler” battling the elite. Odinga and Kenyatta are the sons of the nation’s first vice president and president respectively.
That message resonated with chronically underemployed youths and families squeezed by poverty and rampant corruption, which Kenyatta publicly acknowledged he was unable to rein in.