Deputy President William Ruto on Saturday returned to the Coast for the eighth time since the March 9 handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Raila Odinga and told the ODM leader not to panic over his association with local leaders.
Mr Ruto, who has been using the political ceasefire between the Jubilee Party and Nasa leaders to penetrate the opposition bastion, said his newfound relationship with the ODM leaders was for development.
“People should stop panicking over my tours. The unity is for the development of the country,” Mr Ruto said during the homecoming party for Lunga Lunga MP Khatib Mwashetani in Vanga.
Rebel ODM leaders, led by Coast Parliamentary Group chairman Suleiman Dori and vocal Malindi MP Aisha Jumwa, used the event to praise Mr Ruto and vowed to back him in the 2022 presidential election.
But conspicuously absent during Saturday’s event was Kwale governor Salim Mvurya, a key Jubilee pillar in the Coast region.
