The ruling United Democratic Alliance, UDA, has launched a blistering political attack on former president Uhuru Kenyatta, accusing him of bitterness, envy and refusing to accept president William Ruto’s 2022 election victory.

In a terse open letter titled “An open letter to president Kenyatta: Let us stop the pretence,” UDA directly confronts the former Head of State, telling him to come to terms with Ruto’s presidency and stop what the party described as continued political hostility toward his successor.

“President Uhuru Kenyatta, we have heard you loud and clear. First, temper your intense bitterness, fierce jealousy, endless envy, and toxic obsession with William Ruto,” the party said in the strongly worded statement.

The letter marks a sharp escalation in the war of words between the ruling party and the former president, coming after Uhuru criticized the current administration during a Jubilee Party delegates’ meeting in Kiambu on Monday, May 25, 2026.

During the meeting, Uhuru accused current leaders of failing to address the cost of living and warned against divisive political rhetoric. He said Kenyans “will not eat words” and urged the government to focus on solutions instead of blame games.

UDA, however, framed Uhuru’s remarks as a sign of unresolved political resentment following the 2022 general election, in which Ruto defeated Azimio la Umoja candidate Raila Odinga, who had been backed by the former president.

“It is a fact that William Ruto won the 2022 election against your wishes and political schemes,” UDA said. “For once, be a democrat. William Ruto is now the president of the Republic of Kenya. That is a reality you must live with and accept.”

The party further accused Uhuru of attempting to sanitize his own record while attacking the Kenya Kwanza administration. UDA claimed that while Uhuru’s 10-year presidency had some successes, it was also marked by what the party described as “monumental and gigantic failures.”

“You were president for 10 years, and like every administration, yours had successes alongside monumental and gigantic failures,” the letter said, adding that Uhuru’s tenure was “incomparable not only to the preceding administrations, but also to the first three years of the current administration.”

In one of the most dramatic sections of the letter, UDA accused the former president of handing over a severely damaged state.

“In many respects, you handed over one of the most broken governments in Kenya’s modern history,” the party charged.

The ruling party also dismissed Uhuru’s claim that he peacefully handed over power to Ruto, arguing that constitutional order left him with no alternative.

“You claim to have handed over power peacefully to William Ruto. Of course, you did. You had no option,” UDA said. “That is the beauty and finality of our constitutional democracy.”

UDA then escalated its attack by blaming Uhuru’s administration for the economic difficulties Ruto inherited after taking office in September 2022.

“But you handed over a collapsing economy, a suffocating public debt burden, broken institutions, demoralized sectors, and a country on the brink,” the party said.

The letter went further, alleging that Uhuru had admitted at an Azimio Parliamentary Group meeting that he expected the country to collapse shortly after Ruto assumed office.

“By your own admission during the Azimio Parliamentary Group meeting, you openly confessed that you expected Kenya to collapse within three months of President William Ruto taking office,” UDA claimed.

UDA also suggested that Uhuru’s political objective in 2022 may have gone beyond supporting Raila Odinga, claiming it could have been aimed at creating conditions for his own political comeback.

“One could reasonably ask whether the real objective in 2022 was not merely securing victory for your preferred candidate, the Right Honourable Raila Odinga, but rather creating conditions that would later allow you to return draped in the garments of a false saviour,” the party said in the letter signed by UDA national chairperson Cecily Mbarire and Secretary General Hassan Omar.

The letter concludes by crediting president Ruto with averting a national economic crisis.

“Unfortunately for you, and fortunately for millions of Kenyans and our country, William Ruto stabilised the economy and prevented the default disaster your administration had engineered,” UDA said.

The exchange signals deepening political tension between the ruling party and the former president as the country moves closer to the 2027 election cycle, with UDA appearing determined to frame Uhuru as a political actor still fighting the outcome of 2022 rather than a retired statesman offering criticism.

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