The huge switch from party followers to non-party hopefuls as August 8 beckons

Who is an independent candidate? Let us consider three examples.

Mr Miguna Miguna is a proud, articulate, attention-to-detail lawyer who is seeking election as governor of Nairobi, East Africa’s largest metropolis and leading business, financial, industrial and services hub.

Mr William Kabogo is the wealthy and gaffe-prone incumbent Governor of Kiambu County, one of Nairobi’s three next-door neighbours.

And Dr Paul Otwoma, a one-time cabinet minister and sitting MP for Funyula, seeks to be governor of the Western border county of Busia.

For more than a year now, Mr Miguna has been broadcasting himself to Kenyans, complete with a savvy cyber stall, as an independent candidate.

INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES

Dr Otwoma and Mr Kabogo only last month and last week respectively declared that they were standing as independent candidates.

And the troika may be among an incredible 4,950 aspirants who have applied to contest the six elective posts available at the August 8 General Election as independent candidates.

I say incredible because per IEBC, the total number of nominees by political parties is 16,000.

This will go up after IEBC finalises reviewing the applications for independent candidacies.

Are politicians running away from parties in droves in order to run as independents?

DEAF EARS

Parties rule Kenya’s elections roost so much so that Jill Cottrell Ghai calls it particracy (rule by parties) as opposed to democracy (rule by citizens). Of the 290 MPs of the National Assembly, only four are independents. There are no independent governors or senators.

As Dr Otwoma tells it, his beloved Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) botched the primaries for the gubernatorial race to hand the nomination to incumbent Sospeter Ojaamong.

His protests and demands for the certificate falling on deaf ears, he quit and launched a non-aligned run.

To hear him tell it, Mr Kabogo does not know who will be elected governor of Kiambu, but he knows who will not be.

But Mr Kabogo is not the nominee of Jubilee Party. Beaten by Mr Ferdinand Waitutu, whom he calls a proxy of the powerful, in the primary, he declared an autonomous run.

PARTY PRIMARIES

Almost all the applications for independent runs were filed between this and last month, which is when party primaries were held.

This means applicants were members of parties until they were declared losers of their primaries.

Therefore, the causes of the huge switch from party followers to non-party hopefuls include failure at primaries; disgruntlement at loss; refusal to accept defeat; rigging by party; lockouts by rules; and falling out with high command. Do these situations create independents?

An independent is a non-partisan politician in the sense that she or he is not affiliated to, identified with or sponsored by a party to run in or during an election.

LOCALISED AGENDA

In the UK, independents may champion a single-issue, such as graft, as did Martin Bell, a journalist, in 1997, or pursue localised agenda such as a declining constituency hospital, as did Richard Taylor, a doctor, in 2001.

Some politicians do not join parties because they differ ideologically.

Independence, therefore, espouses and champions national, local or global causes and freedom to think individually and drive solutions to challenges and cause change.

Mr Miguna is an independent by choice and strategy.

Parties, burdened by tribal and graft baggage, like ODM which he served previously, would cloud and crowd out his vision for a modern metropolis and multi-cultural constituency competing on a global stage.

CRITICAL CRITERION

But Dr Otwoma and Mr Kabogo and others will soon be independents, thanks to this one critical criterion.

Per the law, to qualify as an independent candidate, one must not have been a member of a political party for 90 days before an election.

Though this independence is defined more by statutory deadline than personal conviction, some are unimpressed.

Thirty- nine Jubilee nominees in Nyeri County have ganged up against their independent rivals.

BRABDED REBELS

They have branded them rebels whose election would derail Jubilee’s legislative agenda and sympathisers of the opposition National Super Alliance.

These wild claims underscore the consternation independents cause parties and their candidates.

Indeed, in 1968 the constitution was changed to outlaw independents and they were not welcome in de facto or de jure mono-party Kenya.

Love or loathe them, independents are a disruptive force that will impact especially ward, constituency and county electoral politics.

And they will be fought by parties and their candidates alike.

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