Politics 101: How to win the next elections

By Dominic ODIPO

As the country gears up for the next general and presidential elections, it is very important for Kenyan voters, especially those who will be running for national office, to study and try to rationalise the results of the last presidential elections held in December 2007.

For those who intend to run for the presidency, in particular, it is vitally important for them to try and remember how both the country as a whole and the provinces voted last time just in case there might be some trends or tendencies embedded in that vote which could be replicated at the next presidential elections. How was the national vote shared between the major presidential candidates in 2007? Which regions, in particular, voted for which presidential candidates?

Which candidate got the most votes from outside his home region or province? Which candidate got the highest vote from his home region? Could any of these trends or patterns be replicated in the next presidential elections?

According to the figures compiled by the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), which presided over those elections, the total number of Kenyans who were registered as voters before the 2007 general and presidential elections was just over 14.3 million. Out of these, only about 9.8 million actually turned out to vote for the president, or about 68.5 per cent.

Out of this total vote, President Mwai Kibaki received 4,578,034 while his main opponent, Raila Odinga, received 4,352,869 votes. Kalonzo Musyoka, the man who was later to be appointed vice president, got only 879,899 votes. The rest of the presidential candidates received a total of 59,408 votes.

In terms of percentages, Kibaki, according to these figures released by the ECK in 2008, got 46.4 per cent of the total vote; Raila, 44.1 per cent; Kalonzo, 8.9 per cent while the rest of the presidential candidates got just under 0.6 per cent.

But where did these votes come from? According to these ECK figures, the biggest chunk of Kibaki’s votes came from his native Central Province, while the biggest portion of Raila’s votes came, not from his native Nyanza Province, but from the Rift Valley which, then as now, was dominated politically by the MP for Eldoret North, William Ruto.

Narrow tribal vote

Out of Kibaki’s total of over 4.5 million, over 1.7 million came from his native Central Province, or, in terms of percentages, about 97 per cent of all those who turned out to vote in Central Province voted for this son of their soil.

Since virtually all the people who ordinarily live and vote in Central Province are members of the Kikuyu community, we can safely say that Kibaki was the biggest beneficiary of the narrow tribal vote.

In comparison, out of Raila’s total of just over 4.3 million votes, the biggest portion, 1.58 million came, not from his native Nyanza Province but from the Rift Valley, a region dominated by the members of the Kalenjin community.

In percentage terms, almost 65 per cent of those who turned out to vote in the Rift Valley actually voted for Raila Odinga.

From his native Nyanza, Raila received only about 1.28 million votes, almost 300,000 less than what he got from the Rift Valley. The third largest vote basket for Raila came from Western, an area predominantly occupied by the Luhya community.

Of those who turned out to vote in Western Province, more than 639,000 or about 66 per cent of the voters in that province, voted for Raila, compared to only 312,000 who voted for Kibaki.

Out of the eight provinces, Raila beat Kibaki in four, i.e. Nyanza, Western, Rift Valley and Coast in which he got 82, 66, 65 and 59 per cent of the vote respectively.

Kibaki defeated him in Nairobi, Central, Eastern and North Eastern provinces in which he got 48, 97, 50.4 and 50.3 per cent of the vote respectively. Kalonzo, who hails from Eastern Province, did not even win the vote in his home province, which voted 50.4 per cent for Kibaki against his total of 44 per cent.

In short, Kibaki fared best in his native Central, followed by Eastern and Nairobi, while Raila came out best in Rift Valley, followed by Nyanza and Western Provinces.

What conclusions can one draw from these results of the 2007 presidential elections? Here are just three of them.

First, if Raila were to lose the support of the majority of the voters from the Rift Valley and Western provinces, his presidential bid at the next general elections would be virtually untenable.

Put another way, if Raila lost the support of the Luhya and Kalenjin communities, there is virtually no way he could be elected president at the next general elections.

Dead in the water

Second, the real battleground regions in 2007 with regard to the presidency were Rift Valley, Central, Nyanza, Eastern and Western.

Whoever could garner the majority support in these five, would almost certainly win the presidency.

And, finally, if the voting trends of 2007 were to be replicated next time, then Kalonzo’s presidential bid would be dead in the water even before the first vote was cast.

Has Musalia Mudavadi, the deputy ODM leader, studied these figures and trends and come to similar conclusions?

Apparently. That’s why the ongoing struggle for the ODM presidential ticket is much bigger than a mere party political struggle. The presidency itself may be at stake here.

The writer is a lecturer and consultant in Nairobi.

dominicodipo@yahoo.co.uk