'Oro Karao' poll numbers don't add up, use songs to decipher political meaning

Sammy Douglas Kamau Ngotho of DCP after wining the Ol Kalou by-elections.[File, Standard]

Where I come from, we say one doesn’t kick a man when he’s down. In that spirit, I’ll not characterise the ruling coalition UDA’s humiliation at the recent by-election in Ol Kalou (Oro Karao to some folks), as a deep loss to Prezzo Bill Ruto, even though he made a personal intervention by giving poll loser Muchina Nyaga a government job.

Neither will I dissect Prezzo Ruto's short comments about elections not being a matter of life and death—do or die—as he called it, even though it seemed something had died in him from the electoral debacle.

Nor will I probe the veracity of numbers being bandied around to explain what happened in Oro Karao and their implications on the forthcoming General Election. As I wrote earlier, the by-election seemed like such a high-stakes contest; I expected Prezzo Ruto to build a State lodge in Oro Karao so he could meet his Cabinet Secretaries and their Principal Secretaries, who pitched tent there.

They were there to deliver on government programmes of distributing free cooking gas, shoes, food items, mattresses and blankets, boats and fishing gear, and roads. The idea was to restore those who had been taxed to near-death. Even a long-forgotten commuter rail was also revived in record time, after 50 years of stagnation.

It is the latter activities that point to the national government’s interests in the by-election, apparently in the hope that a victory for UDA would reinforce the fictive construct of the party’s popularity at the grassroots. I call it fictive because if it were popular, then all the campaigning would have been unnecessary.

Oooh, I forgot to mention the cash inducements. I understand attending rallies was such booming business; many boda boda riders suspended their regular operations to simply queue up and yell at rallies, with green or yellow hats stacked on the head.

In the event, the yellow hat representing UDA because a symbol of freebies (kula), while votes (kura) were directed to Sammy Douglas Kamau Ngotho, the Democracy for Citizens Party (DCP), which is fronted by impeached DP Rigathi Gachagua aka Riggy G.

Deputy Prezzo Kithure Kindiki, who vowed to fight tooth and nail and teach Riggy G a lesson he would not forget, recoiled swiftly, turning a humiliating defeat into an epic victory: Using a football analogy, in keeping with the spirit of the World Cup season, he claimed the by-election in Oro Karao and the previous one held in Mbeere North resulted in a draw. UDA had scored one, in Mbeere North, as did DCP in Oro Karao.

We could let such inference pass had UDA not snatched victory in Mbeere North with just a handful of votes, even after deploying the government machinery there for three months, while being completely overrun in Oro Karao, after a similarly long foray, and steep expenses.

I think the best yardstick to evaluate the proper cost of the polls should include a review of the cost of running the two campaigns for six months (three months in Mbeere North and three in Oro Karao).

I am not interested in working out the cost of each vote cast for the government. Neither am I talking about the bribes, which reportedly exceeded a billion in cash handouts for each constituency. I am talking about the cost of moving the government from its base in Nairobi for six months. Think about per diems, accommodation for aides and drivers and security guards and, last but not least, goons!

The DCP brigade, led by Nyandarua Senator John Methu and Kipipiri MP Wanjiku Muhia, responded with simple songs: if you want me to sell my vote to you, are you the one who keeps me alive? Will your rice and beans take away my poverty?

The answer came last week, best summed up in a visualisation that went viral. It was titled, “Things you can’t buy with money: time, trust, patience and Ol-Kalou residents.”