>> Site Map >> News
If Elections were called today or in 2007, ...
#58 - 0--clubafrika--If Elections were called today or in 2007, ...--2006-01-24 03:38:36
#
... who would win or lose?
I am no prophet nor am I a soothsayer. I have no special powers to predict peoples' futures, not even the basic ability to read their palms and tell them what lies ahead for them.
But this much I can do, speculate, analyze and draw conclusions, based on circumstances and conditions on the ground to predict possible outcomes of the next general elections, when they are held.
Kenya's next elections will be the most exciting in years. It will be like no other elections in the past. It will take place under very strange and intriguing circumstances. One of the circumstances is that it promises to be the most democratic and the most open if the latest pronouncements will hold.
One of the things that will make it eventful and action packed will be the fact that for the first time, presidential candidates will be stretched to the limit in terms of resources and campaign schedules. They will be too busy fighting for their own nominations and political survival to bother with parliamentary candidates trying to hang on to their coat tails. This time round every one will be for himself and only God will be for us all. - Effective today, the count down to the D-Day is twenty three months away, assuming that the Anglo- Leasing scandal will not bring down the government before then. If Kibaki goes the whole hog, the period will give room for a lot of political horse-trading, building campaign machines and fundraising by individual parties and presidential hopefuls.
As things stand now, chances are that we will go the American way, a new constitution or not, by tasting the excitement of party primaries before the real elections take place. In a way this will be good for Kenya's democratic process to allow those who assume they are popular in their parties to be put to the test.
Should we go the American way, then the entire 2006 will be an election year of primaries such that come January 2007, every party will have identified their most popular presidential candidate, ready for the big battle.
The year 2006 will also see those reluctant democrats defecting from their parties to seek nominations else where after losing their primaries or worse still declare their independent candidatures should no other parties accept them. Should all these alternatives fail, then such rejects would still have the last option to register their own parties to nominate them for the main polls. All these are real possibilities in 2006.
Having said that, which of the political parties dotting the landscape will we be watching this year and next year? Which among them is strong enough to go it alone, fight a successful campaign and win the next general elections?
Readily coming to mind are the Liberal Democratic Party, Kanu, Ford Kenya, Ford People, the Democratic Party of Kenya, National Party of Kenya and the NARC Coalition.
Starting with the last party, the NARC Coalition, it is most unlikely that it will survive as a party if Musikari Kombo and Charity Ngilu decide to run for president in their own constituent parties.
Without coming out openly, all indications are that the Luhyas are in no mood to play second fiddle to any other tribe in the next elections. They feel that after having occupied the second most powerful position on the land three times in a row in the last three years, it is now time for the community to move on to something higher, the ultimate in politics.
You will remember that the Narc Coalition was a creation of NAK and LDP as equal partners in a 50% share of power arrangement. That MoU was soon rubbished immediately the coalition won the poll. Not only that, even the few LDP members of Parliament that were appointed to the Cabinet soon after this debacle have since left the government. They were all punitively removed from the Cabinet after they led an onslaught against the government's preferred constitution.
This means that 50% of the group that formed the coalition is already gone, leaving a further fragmented 50% with grumbles that the remaining patchwork of the coalition may not hold together to fight another war.
The situation has been made worse by the realization that a good number of DP legislators and their supporters from smaller parties in the Mt. Kenya region have openly rebelled against the ruling clique led by Mwai Kibaki. Their rebellion stems from the humiliating defeat they were subjected to during the referendum last year.
They now claim that they lost the battle because of the old guard that surrounded and misadvised the President on the reality on the ground. They further claim that the whole nation may isolate them in future political dispensation the way Central Province was isolated at the referendum.
In a nutshell, they don't want to remain in a shell called NARC. They want to go back to DP and build a strong regional party so that thy can negotiate power arrangements with other communities from the Rift Valley, Western Kenya, Nyanza and Coast Provinces.
If the Democratic Party of Kenya is revived, it will mean that even NAK that brought Ford Kenya, National Party of Kenya and the Democratic Party will have died too. If NAK dies then there will be three presidential candidates in the form of Ngilu, Kombo and Kibaki if the latter decides to seek a second term.
In case the three stalwarts decide to form another coalition and field a single candidate to combine the Kikuyu, Kamba and Luhya votes in the next elections, Kibaki and Kombo are mostly likely to face each other at the primaries due to pressure from the Luhya community that may be hostile to Kombo playing second fiddle again.
I don't think Kibaki can have any headache from Charity Ngilu. Ngilu may easily be content with something in the form of a prime minister because in her own right, she cannot win a presidential race. She has lost so much respect and credibility of late in the eyes of Kenyans.
Since the ODM victory at the referendum, Uhuru has squandered many chances, all for nothing. He had done so well as a steadfast national leader and had made Kenyans believe he was sold to the ODM being turned into a political party. When he later turned around and announced at a press conference that KANU would go to the polls alone, he shot himself on the foot for nothing.
There can be two reasons that prompted Uhuru to let the cat out of the bag that Kanu would go it alone. Either he feared a galaxy of stars at the referendum rallies and realized that there was too much competition to allow him an automatic ticket to the contest. Or, he realized that with Raila Odinga prominently playing the role of god father at the ODM rallies, it would be impossible to eclipse Raila in a presidential race without a fight. To make things worse for Uhuru, there was Kalonzo continually beating him at the opinion polls, not to speak of the amiable former Vice President Musalia Mudavadi, his 2002 running mate, now turned LDP stalwart in Western Province.
Therefore declaring that KANU would go it alone meant that he would only have William Ruto and Mutula Kilonzo to deal with but these two he could easily bully into accepting his candidature through Daniel Arap Moi and his son Gideon. That could have been the motivation for Uhuru Kenyatta to unilaterally declare, without consulting other Kanu members that Kanu would go to the polls alone.
Unfortunately, things have not turned out the way he wanted or expected them to be. In KANU alone, William Ruto has declared his interest in the presidency to the chagrin of Uhuru and Moi. This means that if Uhuru is still keen on running for president, he has his best comrade in arms to contend with. It means that just like in the NAK Alliance where Kombo is likely to face Kibaki as Raila faces Kalonzo and Mudavadi, Uhuru too will face William Ruto and any other KANU stalwart that may yet to declare.
Unless things change drastically, three parties or coalitions will hold their primaries in 2006 in preparations for the 2007 elections if Kibaki's government survives that long.After these primaries the likely candidates to emerge winners will be William Ruto from Rift Valley for Kanu, Mwaki Kibaki for NAK from Central Province and Raila Odinga for LDP from Nairobi.
If there are no fallouts, which is most likely, Raila will have Kalonzo as his running mate while Mudavadi will wait on the wings as the possible Prime Minister. The same will apply to NAK which will see Kibaki nominating Kombo as his running mate while lady Charity Ngilu will be automatic choice for Prime Minister.
In Kanu, things will be trickier for Uhuru and Ruto if Ruto beats him in the primaries. He may be too humiliated to accept the number two slot. He may pull out of the race altogether leaving the field wide open to Mutula Kilonzo and Bonaya Godana to fill as running mate and Prime Minister respectively.
In the event that Ruto's Kanu decides to revisit the ODM issue with a possible merger with Raila's LDP, chances are there may be a second primary election between Ruto and Raila to elect the ultimate torch bearer for the Orange Democratic Party, whatever its name will be. If this happens, Ruto may stand down in favour of Raila on the basis of age, respect and Raila's ability to manage national elections better.
At the age of 61, Raila will be able to serve his two terms and still leave Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Ruto at the tender ages of 64, 54 and 50 respectively. The question to ask is this; with Ruto's 2 million votes from the Rift Valley, will he accept to play second fiddle to Kalonzo and Musalia after Raila leaves the scene in 2017?
Let's move back to 2007 and see who will run on which ticket and win or lose the elections.
The possible presidential candidates, according to the scenario above will be Mwaki Kibaki, Musikari Kombo and Charity Ngilu against Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and William Ruto against Simeon Nyachae. Uhuru Kenyatta may join Simeon Nyachae's party as a running mate or even as a torch bearer since he has better national appeal than Nyachae. In any case, soon after losing the 2002 elections against Kibaki, they formed a short-lived alliance in 2003 to jumpstart the constitution as the middle-ground brokers on the constitution crisis.
If this works out, the battle grounds that will see pitched battles will be Coast, North Eastern and Nairobi provinces that will have not offered presidential candidates because even though Raila Odinga comes from Nairobi, he will be perceived as a Nyanza candidate.
For Kibaki' coalition, they will certainly win votes from Central Province, Bukusuland and a small section of Ukambani. Chances are he will lose Meru and Embu if he prosecutes Kiraitu Murungi and Mwiraria before 2007. This therefore guarantees them only one Province. He has no chance of making an impact in Nairobi, Coast and North Eastern following corruption scandals that have rocked his first term in office. Further more, if the last referendum is anything to go by, chances are, Kibaki will not make an impact in those regions.
As for Uhuru and Nyachae, they will have to contend with 'we also ran' record in history. This is because Central Province will vote for Kibaki as a block while Omigo Magara and his battalion will give Nyachae hell in Gusiiland. This time round, chances of Nyachae getting 300,000 votes in Gusiiland will be as slim as slim can possibly be.
A combination of Raila, Mudavadi, Ruto and Kalonzo will deliver Western, Nyanza, Rift Valley and Eastern Provinces. Further more, if the last referendum is anything to go by, Coast, Nairobi and North Eastern Provinces may just fall to the ODM.
However, these are just wild theories. 2007 is still along way to go. Anything can happen before then and any of the above ten candidates is still capable of turning the tables, not forgetting the horse-trading that will intensify nearer to the polls.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATTRIBUTION GUIDELINES:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was first published by Jerry Okungu and clubafrika.com under a Creative Commons licence.You may republish it free of charge with attribution for non-commercial purposes following the guidelines listed below. Commercial media must contact us or Jerry Okungu for permission and fees if any.
If you choose to publish it on your website please include the following line at the end of the article.This article by [author] was originally published in clubafrika.com . If you enjoyed this article, visit www.clubafrika.com for more: [Link To Article Here]
Content on Club Afrika is covered by disclaimers.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
Discuss this article in Club Afrika Forums - II Kenya discussions in Forum - I Recommend Club Afrika to your friend: Click Here Invite your friend to Club Afrika Forums: Click HereBlog This Topic!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------comments-->0--222--7
