On March 9, 2018, Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga stunned Kenya by shaking hands on the steps of Harambee House, the president's office, and declaring a commitment to national unity and reconciliation. The handshake came without warning to the public, to Uhuru's deputy William Ruto, or to Raila's NASA coalition partners. In a joint statement, the two men acknowledged that Kenya's divisions were unsustainable and committed to working together to heal the country's ethnic and political wounds. The moment, broadcast live and replayed endlessly, represented one of the most dramatic political reversals in modern African history.
The handshake was born from mutual exhaustion and overlapping interests. Kenya had endured two elections in 2017, a Supreme Court nullification, violent protests, economic disruption, and international concern about democratic backsliding. The October 2017 repeat election had delivered Uhuru a Pyrrhic victory with 98 percent of the vote but only 38 percent turnout. Opposition strongholds treated his government as illegitimate. Raila had been "inaugurated" by supporters in a symbolic ceremony in January 2018, creating a dangerous parallel authority. Both men faced pressure: Uhuru needed to govern a divided country and secure his legacy; Raila needed a path to relevance after losing his fourth presidential bid.
What each man wanted from the handshake was different but compatible. Uhuru sought political stability for his second term, legitimacy in opposition strongholds, and space to pursue his development agenda without constant resistance from half the country. He also needed to isolate his deputy William Ruto, whose presidential ambitions were becoming a threat to Uhuru's control of government and to the broader interests of the Kenyatta family and the Kikuyu establishment. Raila sought a guarantee of influence without the burden of another losing presidential campaign, protection for his community's political interests, and a vehicle for constitutional reforms that would create a more inclusive political system.
The immediate impact was seismic. The handshake effectively ended NASA, Raila's opposition coalition, as his partners Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi, and Moses Wetangula found themselves sidelined. More dramatically, it isolated William Ruto within his own government. Ruto had been Uhuru's partner since the 2013 Jubilee Alliance, the co-defendant who shared the ICC burden and the co-principal who delivered Kalenjin votes. The handshake reconfigured Kenya's political geometry: instead of Uhuru-Ruto versus Raila, it became Uhuru-Raila versus Ruto. The "tyranny of numbers" coalition that had governed since 2013 was fractured.
The country's reaction was mixed and deeply divided along ethnic and generational lines. In Luo Nyanza, Raila's heartland, the handshake was celebrated as bringing Luos back into government and ending their marginalization. In Central Kenya, Kikuyu elders and business elites supported the rapprochement as good for stability and economic growth. But among Ruto's Kalenjin base and younger Kenyans across ethnic groups, the handshake was seen as an elite pact between dynasties to protect their interests at the expense of democratic competition. The narrative of "dynasties versus hustlers" began to crystallize, with Ruto positioning himself as the champion of those excluded from the Kenyatta-Odinga deal.
The handshake's most concrete output was the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), a constitutional reform process announced in May 2018. However, the handshake's deeper significance was in reshaping Kenya's political elite settlement. It demonstrated that Uhuru was willing to sacrifice his deputy to make peace with his rival. It showed that Raila preferred a seat at the table to another opposition campaign. It revealed that Kenya's political class could reconfigure alliances with stunning speed when elite interests aligned. And it set the stage for the complete breakdown of the Uhuru-Ruto relationship, which would dominate Kenyan politics through the 2022 election.
See Also
- Uhuru and Raila - Full Arc
- Raila Odinga
- William Ruto
- 2017 Repeat Election and Raila Boycott
- Building Bridges Initiative
- Uhuru and William Ruto Fallout
- Luo Political History
- Kikuyu-Kalenjin Alliance
Sources
- "Kenya: Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga's Surprise Handshake," BBC News, March 9, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43348762
- "The Handshake That Changed Kenyan Politics," The East African, March 2018. https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/handshake-changed-kenyan-politics-1389256
- Opalo, Ken. "The 'Handshake' and the Politics of Elite Bargains in Kenya," African Arguments, March 2018. https://africanarguments.org/2018/03/handshake-politics-elite-bargains-kenya-uhuru-raila/
- "Kenya's Political 'Handshake' and What It Means," International Crisis Group Q&A, April 2018. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/kenya/kenyas-political-handshake-and-what-it-means