Ballot boxes. Photo/Elkana Jacob
In the 1990s it was taken for granted that going into any by-election, the government had an overwhelming advantage over the opposition.
Kenya had only recently been restored to multiparty democracy after many years of single party rule. And to the average Kenyan voter, it was much better to be “in government” than in the opposition.
So whereas during a General Election any of the leading political parties could claim that they were likely to produce the next president, by the time the by-elections came along, it was clear enough who would be in power for the next few years, and thus which party ticket voters should go for if they wanted to be “in government”.
And in general, our president of the time, Daniel arap Moi, had little difficulty in picking up additional parliamentary seats during by-elections, as his promise of “development” weighed heavily on the minds of voters who had no desire to be “left out”.
Only two regions proved to be the exceptions to this general rule: Central Kenya, and what used to be referred to as “Luo Nyanza”. These were the diehard “opposition zones” in which voters repeatedly humiliated “government-sponsored-candidates” during by-elections and invariably opted to remain in the opposition, rather than retreat a single inch, in their rejection of Moi and all his works.
These voting trends of the past two decades help illuminate where we seem to be heading now, following recent by-elections, and specifically the Bungoma senatorial by-elections.
In Bungoma, we saw Moses Wetangula who had barely managed to squeak through back in March, bury his opponent, Musikari Kombo, in a landslide.
This was reminiscent of what happened in the Makueni senatorial by-election of late July this year, which saw Mutula Kilonzo Jnr, get far more votes than his famous father, the late Senator Mutula Kilonzo, had been able to garner a few months earlier.
The big picture painted by these county-wide by-elections, is that contrary to what used to happen in past elections, this time, those who supported the losing coalition in the last General Election, have refused to “accept and move on”.
Instead, they are using every opportunity to signal their discontent to the ruling coalition. And unless this trend changes over the next few years, Uhuru Kenyatta may well have to consider what it will feel like to be the first incumbent Kenyan president to be voted out of office.
Here are the basic statistics which will determine the outcome of the next presidential election:
Going into the March 4th General Election, the number of registered voters in Kenya was around 14 million. That figure was well below the target the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) set out to register, which was 18 million.
And even that this seemingly large number of voters targeted by the IEBC was well below the estimated number of eligible Kenyans: that number was 23 million.
From this we may extrapolate that by 2017, the IEBC will have no difficulty registering over 20 million voters. And that the next man or woman to be elected president of Kenya must plan on winning roughly 10 million votes.
Now the victory gained by the Jubilee Coalition earlier this year, was supposedly due to a “tyranny of numbers” attained by Jubilee registering an exceptionally large percentage of their supporters, while the rival Cord Coalition’s supporters – potentially far more than those of Jubilee – were not as effective in registration. And thus, the argument goes, the outcome of this election was predetermined at the voter registration exercise, where an unassailable lead was attained by Jubilee, right from the start.
But, another lesson from the 1990s, is that Kenyan political leaders, although slow in learning, rarely make the same mistake twice.
In 1992, the Kikuyu community presented two powerful presidential candidates in Kenneth Matiba and Mwai Kibaki: this mistake has never been repeated. In 1997, virtually every “big tribe” had its presidential candidate: by 2002, it was perfectly understood that only strategic coalitions of such ‘big tribes” had any chance of defeating a serving president, or his heir apparent. .
So, assuming high voter registrations and high turnouts all over the country in 2017 – and bearing in mind recent ICC-related developments which threaten the unity of the Jubilee Coalition – the question that President Uhuru Kenyatta must now consider is this: If I lose the support of the Kalenjin, where will I get my 10 million votes from?
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