Sunday, September 5, 2010

Why 2012 won't be an easy ride

By Biketi Kikechi

Political Editor

The political landscape ahead of the race to succeed Kenya’s third president, Mwai Kibaki, has been reshaped and will be unlike any other in the country’s 47-year history. It is therefore becoming clearer that the race for the 2012 presidential elections will not be a walk in the park, after the new Constitution radically overhauled the governance and political system, and the bungled 2007 elections and its violent aftermath invited the wrath of international justice targeting "those with criminal responsibility".

Yet still, last week’s release of the census results — complete with the population sizes of various communities — by the Government is significant in defining the alliance-building arithmetic in view of Kenya’s tribalised politics.

Indeed, the new constitutional dispensation and the census results will go hand-in-hand because the population size and demographics will guide the Boundaries and the Electoral commissions when creating new electoral areas ahead of 2012.

The argument will hold unless the expected indictment of key suspects by the International Criminal Court (ICC) upsets the established tribal order.

This would be in two ways: One, if those affected are presidential candidates hence are locked out in line with the new Constitution’s provisions, and second, how their absence will redefine the voting patterns amongst their captive constituencies.

Indeed, census results released by Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya have generated a lot of interest from community leaders across the country.

The numbers mean a lot not only for resource allocation and planning, but also for the political destiny of individual regions.

That could explain why MPs from Northern Kenya have roundly condemned the cancellation of results for Mandera and Turkana counties.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Raila Odinga dismissed those asking communities with lesser numbers to step on the gas pedal and procreate more children.
Tribal support

The PM downplayed the issue and told the people that it should not worry them as the numbers were not a threat at all. "No Kenyan community can secure the country’s top leadership without coalescing with others," he said.

Unlike past elections, things will not be easy for politicians who may want to use tribal support to ascend to power given the structure of the new presidential system that effectively strips the presidency of hitherto imperial powers.

As expected, political parties and presidential candidates will however try to use the county population and ethnic figures to formulate political alliances.

Under the new Constitution, a presidential candidate will only be declared to have won if he or she gets more than half of the declared votes cast in an election.

The successful candidate must also have received at least 25 per cent of the votes cast in each of more than half of the counties. If Kenyans continue voting along tribal lines, then candidates from the big five tribes will easily marshal numbers if they play their tribal cards. An alliance therefore of more than two of the big five will be something to watch.

Looking at the numbers, the leading communities in terms of population numbers according to the census are the Kikuyu (6.6 million), Luhya (5.3 million), Kalenjin (4.9 million), Luo (4 million) and Kamba (3.8 million). Put together, the big five — out of 24 tribes tallied by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics — contribute more than half of the country’s population.

But things will not be that easy because the candidate eying the tribal card will have to pick a running mate from only one of the communities, thus creating room for discontent and possible rebellion.

That may create a scenario where two or three of the other groups could quickly join forces to take on their opponents.

From the look of things, the so-called small tribes will play a very crucial role should the big five split in a cutthroat competition for power.

But it is the fact that a winning presidential candidate needs to have more than half of all the 47 counties that makes the 2012 race more interesting.

Required ratio

What that means is that a candidate relying on Kikuyu votes will only be assured of the five counties of Nyandarua, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Murang’a and Kiambu and two from the Diaspora, namely Nakuru and Laikipia. A candidate from Central Province will therefore crack his head on how he or she will raise the remaining 18 counties to raise the required ratio.The same will apply to a Kalenjin candidate, who will depend on seven counties, Luhya (5), Luo (5) and Kamba (3).

The county figures show that it will not be enough for two or three communities to gang up and simply win the presidential race.

But some MPs like Ekwe Ethuro (Turkana Central) fear that clustering of tribes in the census may be a recipe for emergence of alliances amongst themselves at the expense of minorities.

Dr Adams Oloo, political scientist at the University of Nairobi, says the new Constitution will reshape the 2012 politics because the president and his/her running mate would be predetermined before the poll and there would be no promises for positions as has happened in the past.

He said the International Criminal Court’s indictment was likely to derail ambitions of one or two top contenders of the 2012 presidential race and that it could affect the voting patterns.

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