When it comes to Kenya’s modern political rivalries, few are as emotionally charged and deeply rooted as that between Rigathi Gachagua and Fred Matiang’i. Their feud is not just about ideology or ambition, it is a collision of personalities, history, and vengeance. Both men are firm, proud, and unyielding. They believe leadership is command, not persuasion, and that control is the truest measure of power.That shared temperament is precisely why they can never work together.
A History Forged in Vengeance
To understand the current tension, one must revisit the Uhuru Kenyatta era, when Dr. Fred Matiang’i sat at the heart of government power as Interior Cabinet Secretary, later elevated to a “Super CS” role coordinating the entire administration. He was the face of state authority: decisive, feared, and unapologetically firm. At the same time, Rigathi Gachagua, then Mathira MP and a sharp critic of the Jubilee government, was walking a perilous political path. His confrontations with the state were frequent and public. He was arrested several times, charged in court for corruption, and had his bank accounts frozen. To Gachagua, these weren’t mere legal troubles; they were political punishment, the handiwork of a government determined to crush him.And in that government, the man at the centre of his pain was Fred Matiang’i.That chapter has never closed. Gachagua has carried that bitterness across administrations, a living grievance that defines how he views his rivals. To him, Matiang’i isn’t just another politician, he is the ghost of humiliation, a symbol of a time when power was used to demean and destroy.
The Tumultuous Tenure of Gachagua
When William Ruto rose to the presidency in 2022, Gachagua entered State House as Deputy President. He saw it as redemption — proof that he had survived “the system.” But his tenure was turbulent. His combative tone, constant regional politics, and open defiance of presidential authority isolated him within the administration. By 2025, Rigathi Gachagua was impeached, the first Deputy President in Kenya’s history to be removed from office. He now leads the Democratic Consolidation Party (DCP), using it as a platform to reassert control over the Mt. Kenya political space and craft a comeback narrative anchored on loyalty and betrayal.Yet, just as he begins rebuilding, Matiang’i reappears.
Matiang’i’s Challenge to the Kingpin
After years of political silence, Fred Matiang’i has re-emerged, this time with presidential ambitions under the Jubilee Party, revived under the patronage of former President Uhuru Kenyatta. It is a move that has unsettled Gachagua’s post-impeachment script.Gachagua has been attempting to herd the Kikuyu vote under his new DCP umbrella, positioning himself as the undisputed Mt. Kenya kingpin and the region’s voice in the 2027 political realignment. But the reawakening of Uhuru and the entry of Matiang’i threaten to dismantle that ambition.In politics, control is everything. And for Gachagua, Jubilee’s revival, with Matiang’i as its face, is a direct assault on his authority. It revives old loyalties, rekindles Uhuru’s influence, and splinters the unity he needs to remain relevant.The Accusation: “Matiang’i is working with Ruto”Cornered, Gachagua has turned to a familiar defence, accusation. His recent claims that Matiang’i is secretly working with President Ruto to weaken him are telling.In Gachagua’s mind, the alliance between his two old adversaries, the man who once tormented him from government and the man who later betrayed him from within, is the perfect storm. The accusation fits the narrative he has built over time: that every system conspires to finish him off.Whether true or not, the claim works politically. It paints Gachagua as the victim of a grand plot, keeping his supporters emotionally tied to him through grievance and defiance. But strategically, Ruto has little reason to intervene directly when figures like Matiang’i and Uhuru can naturally dilute Gachagua’s grip on Central Kenya.
Too Similar to Coexist
The irony is that Gachagua and Matiang’i are, at their core, strikingly similar. Both are disciplinarians, both thrive on authority, and both despise being undermined. They command loyalty not through persuasion but through presence, the kind that makes people stand straighter when they walk into a room.But when two men built on control face each other, the air can hold only one of them.Matiang’i believes in structure, order, and institutional command. Gachagua believes in charisma, loyalty, and raw populism. Their power philosophies are different expressions of the same instinct, dominance. And dominance does not share space.
The Contest for the Mountain
At the heart of their standoff lies the Kikuyu political question, who speaks for the mountain? Gachagua has tried to cast himself as the natural heir to the Kikuyu mantle after Uhuru, building a political identity around cultural solidarity and perceived persecution.But Matiang’i’s entry, backed by Uhuru’s Jubilee reopens the contest. It brings back an older, more technocratic brand of politics that appeals to the business elite and moderate voters weary of Gachagua’s combative populism. The result is a divided mountain, a fractured base, and a leadership vacuum that both men claim to fill.
The Curse of Unfinished Grudges
In truth, Rigathi Gachagua and Fred Matiang’i cannot work together because their political story is one of unresolved enmity. Gachagua’s humiliation during Matiang’i’s years of power left a wound that politics cannot heal. Their personalities — strong, proud, unforgiving — make compromise unthinkable.Now, with Gachagua out of government and Matiang’i mounting a national comeback, their rivalry is no longer about positions but survival. Each represents the other’s unfinished chapter.And as Kenya edges closer to 2027, the ghosts of the past seem to be walking again, not quietly, but in full stride.
