Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has told women that they will have to wait for President William Ruto to complete his term after his Presidential woman running mate promise.
Ruto on Thursday had promised women that they had agreed with Gachagua that going forward, the ruling UDA party would field a female Presidential running mate as a commitment on fulfilling the two thirds gender rule.
Speaking during the launch of the Women Governors Caucus G7 Strategy in Nairobi, yesterday, Dr Ruto said even the gubernatorial aspirants will be required to pick the opposite gender as their running mates.
“Cecily Mbaririe is a chair of UDA not by default it is deliberate and intentional and one of the assignments she has is that we must as a party lead from the front and we must make in the rules… We have agreed with Gachagua that going forward, if a man is a candidate for President in our party the woman must be running mate and if a woman is candidate a man can be a running mate,” he said.
He added “We must cascade it down to governors and be intentional and deliberate about it so that it can happen and all the other parties will agree with us because I am sure the party leader in Wiper supported Wavinya, the party leader in ODM supported Gladys and all the other party leaders supported their women candidates, so we will do this not because we want to do anything against men but because we want to balance so that we all move together.
He said women are the cornerstone of the country’s politics, drivers of change and agents of democratic governance but decried that their active participation in the country’s politics is limited, restricted and always dotted with obstacles and committed to change the course.
He added that the goal was not to discriminate against men but rather to uphold gender standards and push everybody in the same direction.
But today, while speaking in Embu during the international women’s day, Gachagua steered clear that women will have to wait for him to deputize Ruto before realization of the promise.
“Many thought that the promise would be actualized now. No. We will have to wait until we finish our term. When we reach there, the President will guide us on the way forward, the second in command said.
Many had interpreted the President’s move as a strategy to dump Gachagua in 2027 a move that had elicited mixed reactions in social media platforms and in the corridors of politics.