How past voting patterns will determine who wins Kirinyaga governorship race

More often than not, the predictability of how voters cast their ballot can be traced to past voting patterns.

As Kenya heads to the polls on August 8, a lot of focus will be on the Kirinyaga governorship race pitting former Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru against former Gichugu MP Martha Karua.

Ms Waiguru is the Jubilee candidate in the race while Martha Karua is vying on her NARC Kenya ticket.

Political pundits argue that how Kenyans cast their vote is, to a great extent, driven by the fear of being in the Opposition and the “political consequences” that come with it.

This is not only evidenced in Central region but the country as a whole.

In Kirinyaga for instance, the government of the day enjoyed overwhelming support, both in 2007 and 2013, and 2017 will be no different.

In the 2007 elections, for instance, three out of the four parliamentary seats in Kirinyaga (then under the larger Central Province) went to President Mwai Kibaki’s PNU with Ford Asili getting the other seat.

PNU candidates who won in the races were Peter Gitau (Mwea), Martha Karua (Gichugu), and Robinson Njeru Githae (Ndia).

John Kariuki, who won the Kirinyaga Central parliamentary seat on Ford Asili party ticket, was the lone “outsider”.

A year later, Martha Karua formed her NARC Kenya party, ditched President Kibaki’s PNU government and later launched her 2013 presidential bid.

Like 2007, the people of Kirinyaga still voted for the "government party" in the 2013 General Election.

How? You may ask.

Despite President Mwai Kibaki not being on the ballot – since he had completed his two-year term - his move to endorse the Deputy Prime Minister and Gatundu South MP Uhuru Kenyatta turned tides in the larger Central Region.

TNA then became the “official party” for Central Kenya with many governors, senators, MPs, women representatives and MCAs who vied on Uhuru Kenyatta’s TNA winning the elections.

In Kirinyaga, TNA swept all the elective seats in the county with Narc Kenya’s Martha Karua getting no single seat. To make matters worse, Karua herself got fewer votes than the region’s “most unwanted” politician Raila Odinga (2,438 against 3,471) with Uhuru getting a whopping 231,868 votes out of the 241,548 votes cast.

Nationally, NARC Kenya only won one seat in that election; not in Central Kenya but Kisii County where Elijah Moindi won the Nyaribari Masaba parliamentary seat.

 

Martha Karua’s refusal to dissolve her NARC Kenya party and join Jubilee could see a resurgence of the 2013 wave against her, especially as calls by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto for a six-piece vote for Jubilee candidates echo across the region.

In the Jubilee nominations held in April, only a little over 160,000 votes were cast with Anne “Minji Minji” Waiguru garnering 100,632 votes to win the party ticket.

The nominations gave Ms Waiguru a strong base going into the August 8 elections as she tentatively starts off with over 100,000 votes in the bag.

Kirinyaga County has 349,836 registered voters according to IEBC figures, and assuming that all or most of those who voted for Anne’s rivals in the nominations heed President Kenyatta and DP Ruto’s calls and rally behind her, then only 180,000 votes are up for grabs - to be divided among the five governorship candidates.