In
the United States, Gallup and Dick Morris still hold on to the forlorn
hope that Barack Obama will be a one-term president and that the Second
Coming of the Republican Party on the coat-tails of Mitt Romney is well
underway. In their fevered imagination, Barack Obama is not only
discredited for the manner in which he has handled the economic
recovery, but also for the ballooning of the national debt. Some, like
Donald Trump, still hold on to the fantasy that Barack Obama was born in
Kenya and that all they need is time to prove it and bar him from
serving as the United States' 44th President. The United States is a
nation that loves its statistics and barring some unforeseeable events,
the prayers of Gallup or Dick Morris, Barack Obama will be narrowly
re-elected on November 6th and he'll serve out his second term in one of
the most powerful positions in the world.
The case in Kenya is different. Much different. Opinions polls became popular in the 2007 general election campaign and they consistently showed the ODM and Raila Odinga leading. A popular explanation for Raila Odinga's loss to Mwai Kibaki, despite his party dominating in the polls, is that Mwai Kibaki or his handlers ensured that ballot-boxes were stuffed in the incumbent's favour at the expense of the ODM challenger. A retired South African Supreme Court Judge examined the Kenya elections and its electoral institutions and concluded that no one could know who won and who lost and by how much simply because the system was designed to encourage electoral malfeasance on a colossal scale. He added that every presidential candidate in that election engaged in electoral malpractice to some extent. Raila Odinga is not the paragon of virtue denied his just rewards that every one seems to desire.
The 2007 narrative is being replayed in 2012. Opinion polls consistently show that Raila Odinga leads, but does not lead enough to win outright should the election be held today. They also show that collectively the members of the Gang of Seven have a higher chance of winning in the first or even the second round if one of their own is the preferred presidential candidate with the others playing second, third, fourth and fifth fiddles. But the opinion poll numbers are incomplete. They do not take into consideration the state of the electoral environment today. There is no voter register. We are yet to decide whether Kenyans will vote electronically or using traditional paper ballots. The only thing we seem to have settled is that Kenyans will register as voters using electronic devices; we do not know how they work, whether they are secure and who will guarantee the quality of the register.
On the political field, some questions are yet to be answered. It is unknown whether an alliance will indeed guarantee a victory for the alliance's flag-bearer. Uhuru Kenyatta, the putative presidential candidate on The National Alliance's ticket, is enjoying a surge of popularity, especially since the International Criminal Court scheduled his trial for international crimes for after the first round of voting. His party has the big momentum going into the Christmas season and it remains the strongest challenger to the ODM. At least according to the opinion polls that conflate Mr Kenyatta with TNA and Mr Odinga with ODM. Mr Kenyatta's party seems to be enjoying solid growth only in the Mt Kenya region and Nairobi. It seems completely absent in Eastern, Nyanza, the Rift Valley, North Eastern and even in the Coast and Western. So how will the party be able to guarantee Mr Kenyatta's election as president if it is unable to garner a majority in the National Assembly, Senate or control a majority of the county governorships? The answer may be in the riddle of 2007: it matters nothing what the party is. Mr Kibaki was elected despite the fact that his party was among the minnows in Parliament. So Mr Kenyatta may even win in the first round even when all its MPs will come from central Kenya and Nairobi. The same may be true of Mr Odinga's chances. ODM is not the same party it was in 2007 and it may fail this time round to control the National Assembly. Mr Odinga may win the presidency but his party may lose control of Parliament.
It is the spectre of a divided government that opinion pollsters have refused to examine and it is time they started crunching the numbers to analyse the implications of such an outcome. Of the leading presidential candidates, who has the best chance of governing effectively in such a scenario and who is likely to face such a scenario? Time is ticking away as we obsess over whether Raila Odinga's "apology" was an ethnic slap-in-the-face of Mr Ruto and URP, whether Uhuru Kenyatta's TNA is a Kikuyu wolf-in-sheep's-clothing, whether Musalia Mudavadi will live to toast victory or to slink back to his Sabatia backwater as happened in 2002, or whether Kalonzo Musyoka is The One to Watch. For such a small investment in 2007, Mr Kalonzo emerged ahead of the game by merging his miniscule outfit with Mwai Kibaki's party and taking the Vice-Presidency. While the Gang of Seven's two main players, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, continue to treat him shabbily, Mr Kalonzo may yet pull out another rabbit from the hat and bamboozle himself into power in 2013. The opinion polls have half the story. The other half needs to be told.
The case in Kenya is different. Much different. Opinions polls became popular in the 2007 general election campaign and they consistently showed the ODM and Raila Odinga leading. A popular explanation for Raila Odinga's loss to Mwai Kibaki, despite his party dominating in the polls, is that Mwai Kibaki or his handlers ensured that ballot-boxes were stuffed in the incumbent's favour at the expense of the ODM challenger. A retired South African Supreme Court Judge examined the Kenya elections and its electoral institutions and concluded that no one could know who won and who lost and by how much simply because the system was designed to encourage electoral malfeasance on a colossal scale. He added that every presidential candidate in that election engaged in electoral malpractice to some extent. Raila Odinga is not the paragon of virtue denied his just rewards that every one seems to desire.
The 2007 narrative is being replayed in 2012. Opinion polls consistently show that Raila Odinga leads, but does not lead enough to win outright should the election be held today. They also show that collectively the members of the Gang of Seven have a higher chance of winning in the first or even the second round if one of their own is the preferred presidential candidate with the others playing second, third, fourth and fifth fiddles. But the opinion poll numbers are incomplete. They do not take into consideration the state of the electoral environment today. There is no voter register. We are yet to decide whether Kenyans will vote electronically or using traditional paper ballots. The only thing we seem to have settled is that Kenyans will register as voters using electronic devices; we do not know how they work, whether they are secure and who will guarantee the quality of the register.
On the political field, some questions are yet to be answered. It is unknown whether an alliance will indeed guarantee a victory for the alliance's flag-bearer. Uhuru Kenyatta, the putative presidential candidate on The National Alliance's ticket, is enjoying a surge of popularity, especially since the International Criminal Court scheduled his trial for international crimes for after the first round of voting. His party has the big momentum going into the Christmas season and it remains the strongest challenger to the ODM. At least according to the opinion polls that conflate Mr Kenyatta with TNA and Mr Odinga with ODM. Mr Kenyatta's party seems to be enjoying solid growth only in the Mt Kenya region and Nairobi. It seems completely absent in Eastern, Nyanza, the Rift Valley, North Eastern and even in the Coast and Western. So how will the party be able to guarantee Mr Kenyatta's election as president if it is unable to garner a majority in the National Assembly, Senate or control a majority of the county governorships? The answer may be in the riddle of 2007: it matters nothing what the party is. Mr Kibaki was elected despite the fact that his party was among the minnows in Parliament. So Mr Kenyatta may even win in the first round even when all its MPs will come from central Kenya and Nairobi. The same may be true of Mr Odinga's chances. ODM is not the same party it was in 2007 and it may fail this time round to control the National Assembly. Mr Odinga may win the presidency but his party may lose control of Parliament.
It is the spectre of a divided government that opinion pollsters have refused to examine and it is time they started crunching the numbers to analyse the implications of such an outcome. Of the leading presidential candidates, who has the best chance of governing effectively in such a scenario and who is likely to face such a scenario? Time is ticking away as we obsess over whether Raila Odinga's "apology" was an ethnic slap-in-the-face of Mr Ruto and URP, whether Uhuru Kenyatta's TNA is a Kikuyu wolf-in-sheep's-clothing, whether Musalia Mudavadi will live to toast victory or to slink back to his Sabatia backwater as happened in 2002, or whether Kalonzo Musyoka is The One to Watch. For such a small investment in 2007, Mr Kalonzo emerged ahead of the game by merging his miniscule outfit with Mwai Kibaki's party and taking the Vice-Presidency. While the Gang of Seven's two main players, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, continue to treat him shabbily, Mr Kalonzo may yet pull out another rabbit from the hat and bamboozle himself into power in 2013. The opinion polls have half the story. The other half needs to be told.
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