I have been following the US presidential elections very keenly and anyone who followed the primaries will agree with me that it is quite an intriguing process. I find very interesting that 2 months to the elections there is still no clear frontrunner. The US presidential election and our own politics share some similarities, one of them is the influence of money. The performance of Donald Trump in the polls and in the primaries is testament that money is crucial and in some cases, it is all you need. Another similarity is race with translates to ethnicity in our case. The colour of skin matters in the US just as tribe matters in our case here in the 254. Gender is yet another similarity I find in both our politics and that in the US that women still struggle to be elected to public office.
There are huge contrasts in our two systems. I won’t go into all of them but I will mention the one that is important to the point I am trying to make and that is issue-based politics. In the US and much of the west, a candidate needs to spell out his policies in health, economy, foreign issues etc. Here in Kenya, this is not the case, a candidate just needs to be from the “right tribe” and have enough money to be elected president. Which brings me to my question, are presidential campaigns really necessary? Does a candidate really need to spend hundreds of millions of shillings campaigning?
Let’s take an example of the 2013 elections; CORD vs Jubilee. Since tribes vote as a block, it was obvious, jubilee would win going by the total population of the two major tribes in that party i.e Kikuyu and Kalenjin. Raila had already fallen out with the Kalenjin community over the Mau and ICC issues and therefore he was not getting many votes from that area. Kikuyus on the other hand have been consistent in voting for their own since independence So why did Uhuruto need to go to Rift valley and Central Kenya to campaign? Those votes were already locked so to speak. On the other side a similar story, Luo Nyanza, Ukambani and much of coast region were always going to vote CORD so I don’t get the logic of Raila and his crew making trips to Machakos, Mombasa and Malindi. There is no such thing as undecided voters in Kenya and if there are they don’t make up a significant number to make any change. So, are presidential campaigns really necessary?
we should do it like the british. i think they have campaigns for (i think) 3months, just before they go to the polls. this whole campaigning for a year is garbage
Enyewe, Amollo is in his own class of absurdity. In 2013, He believed that the Kale’s were going to vote for him, despite him throwing Ruto under the bus, The Mau issue and the ICC debacle.
Then, he was misadvised that, he can split the Kikuyu votes along Chania river, as it happened btwn Kibaki and Uhuru, His choice of Candidate for the work, we all know.
It’s either the people Amollo surrounds himself with, misleads him intentionally and want to see him fail, or, the man doesn’t take advice from any quater…
You say Raila lost RV because of ICC and MAU issue, then you go ahead and say they voted in a tribal way. Remember in year 2002 kibaki was voted in by majority of kenyans irrepective of their tribe. Tribal politics were started by Raila in 2007, you remember 41 vs 1 statement, that is where it started. But now he want to play victim once he is trapped in a hole he dug himself. Siasa za ukabila zinaisha na yeye come year 2017