Why ethnic numbers alone won’t decide polls outcome

It is amazing that President Uhuru Kenyatta could win the August 8 elections. I say this because under normal circumstances, an incumbent presiding over runaway inflation, insecurity and grand corruption of the scale Kenya has recently experienced would be in the polling doldrums. Yet Mr Kenyatta persists as the frontrunner.

This reality is an invitation to think farther about the nature of our politics. Of course, most analysts will run to ethnicity and so-called tyranny of numbers as explanation for everything political in Kenya. They will say President Kenyatta is likely to win simply because, combined with William Ruto, he has the numbers to beat NASA (this is a dubious claim, by the way).

This is lazy thinking. And it is about time we got a little more sophisticated. Ethnic voting may be part of the story, but it is not the whole. It is simply not the case that President Kenyatta can win re-election on the basis of votes from two distinct voting blocs. To win in August, he will need votes from Kenya’s many swing regions.

And it is for this reason I think three other important factors, besides ethnicity, will drive the outcome of the presidential election.

First, it will be the economy. The Kenyan economy has been growing by more than 5 percentage points each year for the last four years. And so while the cost of living is higher, it is also the case that a lot more Kenyan households have seen an improvement in their standard of living. Therefore, it would be foolish to dismiss, offhand, these aggregate numbers.

The numbers may not amount to tangible benefits in every household; but they also suggest that the economy is not in free fall. And that will matter for fence-sitters who voted for UhuRuto in 2013. The perception over the state of economy will motivate this voting bloc either to show up to the polls on August 8 or stay home. If they feel hurt by the state of the economy and choose to stay home, Kenyatta will certainly lose the election.

Second is devolution. For a number of reasons, not least because of the ICC cases facing Ruto and Kenyatta, the 2013 election was a high stakes affair. Kenyans had yet to internalise the meaning and potential of devolution as a means of bringing government and public life in general closer to them. Now we know what governors can do.

And because of that, a lot more Kenyans than usual will feel like the presidential election is not the alpha and omega of their lives. And so they may opt to focus their attention on choosing their preferred governor but maintaining the status quo in Nairobi – which would, of course benefit Kenyatta. Here too, there is the risk for Kenyatta that some voters may want to clean up system – akin to the #fagiawote movement on Twitter. Such a clean sweep would send Kenyatta home.

Third, narratives will matter. In 2013, Ruto and Kenyatta sold a narrative of rapid progress and transformational modernisation. They promised stadia, power, hospitals, roads – all material expressions of modernisation.

They were different than any other politicians the country had ever seen, at least with regard to the sleekness of their message. Add to this the ICC factor and it is clear why many voters bought their arguments hook, line and sinker. 2017 is different. But it is still a year in which narratives will matter.

President Kenyatta may win on the narrative that he is trying to finish what he started, and needs more time to complete the task. But the opposition may also win on the narrative that Kenya does not have to waste five more years before it can curb corruption, lower the cost of living and chart forth a new and better agenda. Whoever messages well will win the crucial marginal voters.

Jubilee and NASA strategists should know ethnic arithmetic alone will not be enough.

-The writer is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University.