Uhuru’s strategy that appeals to the brain but ignores the heart

In the 1992 elections, Americans had their own Baba (spelt ‘Bubba’ but pronounced the same as our Baba). And he won the elections hands down. OK, let me start this story from the beginning.

In June 1991, George HW Bush had become the most popular president in modern American history. Under his leadership, the American army had just come back home triumphant from the Gulf War, having expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Euphoria was at its highest; in fact, one observer likened the soldiers’ homecoming to the majestic return of the legions of Ancient Rome.

Additionally, Bush’s war victory happened at the perfect time; just 15 months to the presidential elections. His popularity ratings, according to their ‘Ipsos and Infotracks’ was soaring at 90 per cent. The successful war was his big shiny SGR; an achievement so heroic and popular, even his critics and political enemies were struggling to respond.

Sure enough, all his likely opponents assessed the situation and gave up. They decided to save their resources until the next electoral cycle. Everyone was afraid of vying against Bush. Everyone, except ‘Bubba’, a little known young governor from Arkansas. His real name was Bill Clinton. He was 40 years old, with nothing but a magnetic personality.

He earned his ‘Bubba’ nickname from ‘having the common touch’; he had the gift of persuasive oratory. Throughout the campaign, a large part of the captivated electorate remained endeared to Clinton, even when he was besieged by scandal after scandal; from numerous accusations of extra-marital affairs, to a damning revelation that he had dodged the conscription during the Vietnam War. In the end, this comparatively nondescript guy, as we all know, won the election against the Bush colossus; fair and square.

So how did a little known governor topple the Republican establishment? The answer to this question is simple. Political reality proves that it is rhetoric that almost always carries the day. The ability to win people over and capture their hearts trumps the ability to speak to their heads and appeal to their sensibilities. George HW Bush and his war victory, Uhuru M Kenyatta and his SGR, are far less convincing than Bubba’s charm and Baba’s rhetoric, respectively.

World over, political rhetoric can be grounded on any tool of mobilisation; ethnicity, as in Kenya, Burma and others; religion, as in Pakistan, Somalia and others; race as in America, South Africa and others; economic systems as in China, Russia and others. In the Kenyan case, the difference between using rhetoric and using infrastructural development for electoral mobilisation is like the difference being converted to join a religion, and being convinced to join a Sacco. Both are decisions, but one is informed by faith, and the other by reason. And of course, the faith-based conversion is much stronger than the reason-based conviction. That is why the political handbook, ‘The 48 Laws of Power,’ instructs that politicians should ‘Create a cult-like following by playing on people’s need to believe.’

On this, our Kenyan Baba is also naturally as gifted as America’s Bubba was. He has the ability to carry out enmasse conversions, complete with a collective ‘baptism’. His followers are not just party members and subscribers, they are disciples and believers. Jubilee on the other hand is putting people to sleep with their development laundry list, interrupted by momentary bursts of excitement such as the launch of the SGR, followed by more ‘track-record’ lullabies.

This, in my view is appealing to the brain and ignoring the heart. They should instead be doing both. President Kenyatta, who is often outshone by his deputy’s crowd moving oratory, is failing to package and sell hope. Ironically, in Kenyan politics, just like religion- hoping for things not seen is more powerful than the earthly here and now.

A passionate future promise is more desirable than a present tangible solution. Stranger than fiction! But let us flip the argument, because I could actually be totally misguided in perceiving rhetoric as the be all and end all of electoral mobilisation. Perhaps we Kenyans have undergone an intensive political evolution in the past five years. Perhaps we are transitioning from the Babas and Bubbas; the purveyors of false hope, and stockists of phantom promises. Perhaps we can be convicted by the tangibility of the here and now; weighing the palpability of the SGR against the mirage of reduced rent in the unforeseeable future. I refuse to believe that we are bound to be permanently high on the opium of abstract rhetoric.

—The writer is a PhD candidate in Political Economy at SMC University and a Research Fellow at Fort Hall School of Government. [email protected]