Nightmare for top candidates

Presidential candidates will have to overcome a series of major hurdles before they can romp home to victory in next year’s General Election.

Analysts say it will be a tough balancing act for candidates who will be required to win more than 50 per cent of all votes cast and at least a quarter of the votes in 24 counties to be declared the winner.

The biggest dilemma facing the candidates and their teams is how to identify a running mate and at the same time retain sufficient popularity across the country.

In the past, candidates have created campaign teams around thinly veiled promises of Cabinet positions for tribal chieftains and regional kingpins but the new constitutional requirement has hugely altered the game plan.

“The 50 per cent plus one vote requirement plus a quarter of votes in half the counties complicates matters for tribal presidential candidates,” said Justice minister Mutula Kilonzo.

The minister predicts that in all likelihood, there will be no winner in the first round and a new president will be elected in the second round.

“A runoff is a given at this point. More tribal chieftains on the ballot increase runoff chances. Governors will reduce the influence of tribal chieftains only after political parties detribalise and become issues-driven.

The greatest advantage Kenya enjoys now is for the running mate to be named ahead of the elections.

Those who want to be president aren’t sleeping worrying about the trap,” said Mr Kilonzo.

The trap Mr Kilonzo was referring to is the fear that after naming a running mate, a presidential candidate is likely to lose chunks of support from voters who might have wished to have a running mate coming from their region.

Safina presidential candidate Paul Muite, who launched his bid on Friday, is also of the view that the architecture of the new Constitution could lead to a runoff.

Matters are complicated by the constitutional provision that in future, Cabinet members will be picked from outside the political class and all presidential nominees will have to be approved by Parliament.

The constitutional provision that presidential nominees to various senior State positions will have to be vetted by Parliament means that candidates for State House cannot dangle the promise of public office as they hunt for votes.

Election losers and their running mates will also have to cool their heels for five years before they can taste political office. They will be ineligible for State jobs or nomination to Parliament.

One of the grey areas which the Supreme Court could be invited to interpret in the coming months is whether a presidential candidate can simultaneously run for Parliament.
Should they rule that presidential candidates and their running mates cannot run for any other position, it means that those wishing to join the race will have to carefully consider their chances of winning lest they dig their own political graves.

The presidential hopefuls also face the challenge of mobilising the massive resources required to mount a campaign that would give them a national appeal.

The Constitution requires that presidential candidates be endorsed by at least 2,000 voters in 24 counties before they are placed on the ballot by the electoral commission.

University of Nairobi’s Prof Karuti Kanyinga (See Page 30) estimates that to collect the signatures, candidates will have to set up a secretatariat and employ clerks. In his estimation, it will cost each presidential campaign team anything upwards of Sh48 million.

In addition, parties will have to work hard and support candidates running for positions at county and constituency level in order to ensure a strong presence at the grassroots.

ODM’s parliamentary group secretary Ababu Namwamba admits that the field has been significantly altered and says his party is trying to create a big presence in the counties well ahead.

“The new Constitution has fundamentally altered the chessboard for all future presidential races, and positively so.

The requirement for a broad-spread majority to clinch victory has confined to the dustbins of history that dangerous tendency to balkanise the country into ethnic blocks as exclusive fiefdoms of narrow-minded xenophobic chieftains masquerading as presidential candidates.

Now every presidential wannabe must come out of that regional cocoon and engage the Kenyan voter across the length and breadth of the country,” Mr Namwamba told the Sunday Nation.

He also foresees the possibility of a runoff but says his party is confident that the incumbency offered by party leader Raila Odinga will help them to sell their agenda easily across the country.

The Orange party leaders will have to craft a formula for gaining a replacement for the breakaway support they suffered under the rebellion spearheaded by Eldoret North MP William Ruto.

The challenge ahead is also crystal clear to PNU as captured by the party’s vice-chairman George Nyamweya.

“Our idea was to bring more parties together but more people want to go into smaller parties.

It’s going to be a massively confused arrangement. If you have six elections, that of the president, the governor, the senator, the MP, the woman county representative and the County Assembly representative, you are possibly talking about 90,000 polling stations.

For those of us who are going to run presidential elections, you are talking about 200,000 agents,” Mr Nyamweya said.

“We really have to get together. That’s why in the US and so on, there are few parties that nominate one candidate.

You reduce the contest to two or three parties. But this egocentric approach cannot survive.

Now it’s not just simple. The requirement means that you must campaign right across the country.

An individual cannot manage. It must be parties. We should focus more in organising contests inside parties,” said Mr Nyamweya.

The PNU leadership is attempting to work out an agreement with Mr Ruto’s group in what has been referred to as G7 but nothing concrete has been arrived at.

Think tank

Yesterday, a G7 think tank was in a closed-door meeting in Elementaita trying to craft a winning formula for their party.

The think tank was convened to prepare for a national convention of the G7 Alliance, approve an Alliance Charter, election schedule and roadmap for grassroots recruitment and campaign to market the new Alliance.

“The alliance is expected to be ready to go by August this year,” said Titus Ibui, the Interim Alliance chairman.

“Although we have not brought on board at this point our UDM colleagues, we have held intensive consultations with them and will keep them updated,” he said.