By MURITHI MUTIGA
Posted Saturday, February 18 2012 at 19:13
Posted Saturday, February 18 2012 at 19:13
It might be the only race he wins this year, but presidential candidate Raphael Tuju has already bagged the trophy for best name of a political party.
A few minutes after the event at the KICC where he unveiled the platform on which he will seek the presidency, the duty sub-editor at the Nation online desk had the easiest of tasks crafting a headline: “Tuju launches Party of Action”.
Facebook and Twitter were soon filled with riffs on the name. Many said they would now have to think twice before responding to the greeting Vipi? which commonly draws the response “Poa”, the new party’s acronym.
The best of the quips was probably Kwamchetsi Makokha’s quick-fire take:Usiseme poa, sema uko Tu-Ju sana. (That line is literally untranslatable). Does the name of a party or the choice of a slogan matter? Absolutely. The world has entered a new era of political campaigning where image possibly counts for more than substance.
In most countries with competitive electoral systems this means that the party that can bring together the best communications whiz kids to concoct the catchiest TV ads, the best slogans and hopefully front a highly charismatic, TV-ready candidate has an advantage over their rivals.
This fact appears lost on most politicians on the local front. The last year or so has seen a parade of parties launched with lamentably bland names and even more pedestrian slogans.
It is puzzling why the politicos love cramming consonants into the names of their parties. William Ruto had all the time in the world to come up with a fitting name to go with his political party which he hopes to be identified with youthful zest and pragmatism.
The name he came up with is a disaster: United Republican Party. It evokes very little meaning on a plain reading and is open to manipulation by rivals as they quickly did by claiming it stood for Ukiona Ruto Potea (Take off at the sight of Ruto).
Supporters on Facebook countered that it could also mean Ukiona Raila Potea but that’s not the point. Why couldn’t he propose a friendlier and easier to pronounce tag such as Republicans of Kenya (ROK)?
The United Democratic Front (UDF) party picked by youthful MPs who hope to front an alternative candidate is similarly uninspiring.
The slogans of the main contenders are not too remarkable either. Prime Minister Raila Odinga is facing the first election in his career where he will run essentially as an incumbent.
You will realise this from some of his speeches where he cites major projects initiated under the current administration and says he will scale these up and launch even bigger ones such as a rail system linking most of East Africa.
That makes the slogan ODM has chosen, the “change we want,” rather puzzling. That’s a slogan you would expect from an oppositionist challenging an incumbent.
To understand the importance of messaging and image, you only need to speak to Michael Joseph, Safaricom’s CEO in its salad days.
Mr Joseph says one of the most important decisions they took was to pick green as their corporate colour. Green brings all manner of positive associations in the African mind.
It is the colour of plenty, the colour that accompanies the rains, the hue that spells a bountiful harvest. Safaricom was making an early and powerful pitch for the hearts and minds of its subscribers.
Kencell, which believed forecasts that estimated only about 20,000 Kenyans would ever own a mobile phone, chose pink, a baffling choice in this part of the world to say the least. (Almost as confusing, you would have to say, as Uhuru Kenyatta imagining in our lifetimes people will want to chant a new Jogoo! Jogoo!)
Safaricom and Kencell fared very differently in the market for more reasons than choice of colour. But Safaricom’s smart call did not hurt. Tuju is showing that the modern day campaign will have to pay much more heed to shrewd messaging than they did in contests in the past.
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