New headache for leaders eyeing presidency in 2012 hopefuls

The voting patterns during the referendum have presented Prime Minister Raila Odinga and other 2012 presidential hopefuls with a new headache.

Political pundits say the voting patterns during the August 4 referendum should serve to forewarn 2012 presidential hopefuls of the political alliances they need to craft if they hope to succeed President Kibaki.

With a new constitution that sets stringent benchmarks for one to win an election, the 2012 presidential candidates will have to combine the twin aspects of identifying a strategic running mate with mounting a powerful political campaign.

According to Chapter 138 which deals with procedures of electing a new president, a candidate shall be declared elected as president only if he or she receives more than half of all the votes cast in the election and at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in at least 24 of the 47 counties.

If no candidate meets this threshold, a run-off will have to be held within 30 days, pitting the two candidates who attained the highest number of votes during round one of voting.

The candidate who receives more votes than the other will be declared the new president.

Each presidential candidate will have to name their running mate when presenting their candidature to election officials.

The running mate becomes the deputy president if his or her presidential candidate wins the election.

The new requirements about attaining the support of a quarter of the total number of voters in at least 24 of the 47 counties and naming a running mate beforehand have got all those nursing presidential ambitions in 2012 thinking hard.

Because unlike in the past when one could dangle the vice-presidency to every region to attract their votes during presidential campaigns, this time round a presidential candidate will have to publicly declare their running mates.

Going by the outcome of the referendum, all the leading politicians in the country delivered their strongholds with relative ease.

Mr Odinga’s Nyanza backyard delivered the highest percentage of the “Yes” vote countrywide while Higher Education minister William Ruto equally sent a powerful statement about his unrivalled support in the North and South Rift regions.

Deputy Prime Ministers Musalia Mudavadi and Uhuru Kenyatta also did well in their Western and Central province strongholds, with all constituencies in the two provinces overwhelmingly voting “Yes”.

Only Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka experienced some difficulties delivering the “Yes” vote in Ukambani, with only 10 out of the 17 constituencies voting in favour of the new constitution.

Delicate balance

Coast Province, which overwhelmingly supported Mr Odinga during the 2007 presidential election overwhelmingly voted “Yes” during the referendum, as did North Eastern Province.

According to Mr Katwa Kigen, a city lawyer and political analyst, it will take a delicate balance between the interests of the various regions of the country for one to emerge victorious during the next presidential election.

“I have no doubt that regional arrangements will still count in the next elections. This is because different regions have different interests which must be catered for and the only guarantee the citizenry can have that their interests will be catered for is to have one of their own in the top ranks of the political ladder,” argues Mr Kigen.

“It is my take that if whoever wants to be president comes from Western, he or she must get a running mate from Eastern and vice versa. The divide between Eastern and Western is Naivasha,” he contends.

Similar sentiments were echoed by Prof Macharia Munene, a history and international relations lecturer at the United States International University.

According to Prof Munene, it will be suicidal for say, Mr Odinga to pick Mr Mudavadi as his running mate as this will appear to isolate the Eastern parts of the country.

Similarly, it will be suicidal for the VP to pick a running mate from Coast, Eastern or Central province as this too will appear “too Eastern”.

The political logic here, according to the two analysts, is that a Western-Eastern combination will ensure that a presidential candidate garners a national appeal as well as securing the support of the majority of counties to win the election in the first round.

Whereas Nairobi University political lecturer Dr Adams Oloo agrees that regional kingpins will still play a key role in determining the next president, Mr Odinga can still secure a national appeal and the support of majority of the counties while still retaining Mr Mudavadi as his running mate.

“Ethnic and regional blocs will still matter in 2012 so there will still be regional or ethnic kingpins. As a result, the main candidates will have to identify their various pointmen in the key regions,” he states.

“In my opinion, the PM is still going to retain Musalia Mudavadi as his running mate for three reasons. One; so that he does not disenchant Western Province. Two; Musalia is not only a deputy prime minister, he is also Raila’s deputy in ODM so it will not be in the best interests of the party to replace him as his running mate. Three, Musalia does not raise the pessimism, in other words, there are no anti-Musalia feelings in parts of the country as there are anti-Ruto or anti-Kalonzo or even anti-Raila feelings in some parts of the country,” he said.

What matters is for presidential candidates to identify key pointmen in various regions to win support from those regions.

“The PM may however need to identify pointmen such as Charity Ngilu to secure the Kamba vote and others in other regions. He will also hope that Central Province does not field a strong candidate,” he said.

Mr Kibisu Kabatesi, a political strategist and director of communications at the office of the DPM and Local Government minister however dismisses the notion that regional blocs will play a role in determining future presidents in the new constitutional dispensation.

“The new constitution debunks the idea of ethnic blocs which have previously thrived because they tended to guarantee the ruling ethnic blocs access to national resources,” argues Mr Kabatesi.

“The defining thing about presidential candidates and their running mates under the new constitution will be their character, personality and vision, not their ethnic or regional backgrounds,” he adds.

Too Eastern

Mr Kabatesi questions the Western-Eastern and vice-versa arrangement pointing out the current set-up in the grand coalition government, which he says has worked perfectly despite not conforming to such arrangement.

“Even today, the leadership of the grand coalition government can be said to be too Eastern given that the President, the Vice President and one deputy prime minister all come from the Eastern part of the country.

“In fact, the President and one deputy prime minister come from the same community, why is it not an issue?” he asks.