Why Nasa leaders are finding it hard to pick presidential candidate

Nasa co-principals from left: Musalia Mudavadi, Moses Wetang'ula, Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka chat during a rally at Masinde grounds in Nairobi on March 24, 2017. In 1997, when Raila ran without a Luhya ally, he got only about 13,500 votes. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The choice for the president and the deputy boils down to either of two combinations: Nyanza-Eastern or Western-Eastern..
  • Although Kalonzo carries a significant block of Kamba votes, as a running mate he might be unable to fully energise his base.

The National Super Alliance’s search for a candidate to take on President Uhuru Kenyatta in the August election has been disagreeably longer than Opposition supporters would have liked to see.

An early choice would settle the nerves, make fund-raising easier and free time to work out a campaign strategy.

The delay is also costing the Opposition: The supporters of each of the principals are leveraging every advantage they can with extravagant claims why each of their candidates must be the inevitable choice.

Some of this jostling might convulse and undo the edgy truce that keeps the Opposition united.

But why does the Opposition find it so hard to forge a united front?

There are two important barriers to unity and both are tactical.

WESTERN VOTES

One is the nature of each of the principal’s support base and second is the ability of a principal to keep his support intact if he is not the presidential candidate.

Mr Musalia Mudavadi of ANC, an early favourite, does not hold the Western vote.

He also seems to have little support outside western Kenya, despite his name recognition across the country.

In 2013, he managed only 353,858 votes in Western, a region with 1,214,285 voter turnout numbers.

Outside of his western political base, he got only 130,123 votes.

In short, Mr Raila Odinga of ODM got more than two times what Mr Mudavadi got in Western.

Senator Moses Wetang’ula might claim that as Mr Odinga’s ally, it was his influence that delivered the western votes to Mr Odinga in 2013.

Some of his supporters make this claim, reasoning that if Mr Wetang’ula could deliver all those votes when he was not himself a presidential candidate, how much better might he perform if he were Nasa’s choice?

Unfortunately, that is a rather large counter-factual claim with slender support in electoral history.

Nasa co-principals from left: Musalia Mudavadi, Moses Wetang'ula, Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka recite the national anthem during a rally at Masinde grounds in Nairobi on March 24, 2017. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

VICTOR'S WINDFALL
Mr Wetang’ula has never run for president. It is hard without that history to work out how many of the 2013 votes that Raila got in western came directly from Mr Wetang’ula’s personal influence.

In 1997, when Raila ran without a Luhya ally, having fallen out with Mr Kijana Wamalwa, he got only about 13,500 votes.

Wamalwa had 338,120 votes. Instructively, though, President Moi got 314,669 votes.

He was beaten by Wamalwa by just under 25,000 votes. This says to me that there could be a ‘potential victor’s windfall’ in western Kenya.

In short, it might be that a non-Luhya candidate — Mr Moi or Mr Odinga — can garner votes in western Kenya if, first, he is able to forge local alliances — not necessarily with a presidential candidate — and, second, he also looks like a winner.

That would suggest that either Mr Wetang’ula or Mr Mudavadi could deliver a substantial vote to Nasa from western Kenya if the coalition looks like a winner and not necessarily because either is a presidential candidate.

But supposing one of them is the presidential candidate?

Which of the other two principals, Mr Odinga and Mr Musyoka, would be chosen as a running mate on the Nasa ticket?

REGIONAL BALANCE

A western alliance — between Mudavadi and Raila or Wetang’ula and Raila — is not a good idea.

It is too geographically narrow and may complicate Nasa’s politics in Nairobi, Eastern and perhaps parts of the Coast.

The choice for the president and the deputy boils down to either of two combinations: Nyanza-Eastern or Western-Eastern.

A Musalia/Kalonzo ticket seems strong on paper.

The question is whether the Kamba vote is transferable to Musalia if Kalonzo is not the candidate.

Recent history suggests that how Ukambani votes depends on how the other Kamba leaders behave, not merely on the decisions of the presidential candidate.

Although Kalonzo carries a significant block of Kamba votes, as a running mate he might be unable to fully energise his base.

After all, he has been a vice-president, a running mate and a presidential candidate. Yet he has never fully delivered the Kamba vote.

When he ran on his own, in 2007, he polled 879,903 votes against Raila’s 4,352,993.

Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka (left) talks with Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar at Ukunda in Kwale County during a rally on April 8, 2017. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NATION MEDIA GROUP

Of this, only 153,117 votes were from outside Eastern.

More interesting, the total vote he got in Eastern — 726,786 — was only 63 per cent of the total number of voters in Ukambani.

He was unable to convince over 30 per cent of Ukambani.

WEAKEST LINK

Though he might claim that he delivered Cord’s sweeping victory in Eastern in 2013, that would be discounting the impact of other Kamba leaders at the time, like Mutula Kilonzo for example.

Of the four principals, Raila is the only one who has consistently been able to transfer most of his votes to whomever he supports.

This makes him the strongest candidate but it also makes him Nasa’s weakest link.

If he walks outs, Nasa cannot win the election. If he stays in and Nasa holds, he can determine who becomes president whether he is the candidate or not.

The principals whose votes are hard to transfer — Wetang’ula, Musalia and Kalonzo — need to win the nomination to fully motivate their bases.

At the same time though, none of them is strong outside their home bases.

If one of them is nominated Nasa will consolidate the bloc votes in one region but may be weak outside of that base.

Mr Odinga, the only person with consistently bankable votes in Nasa, is routinely demonised – principally by Jubilee — as ‘unelectable’.

This fanciful charge presents him as a perennial loser, who lost in 2007 — he did not — and in 2013 — we don’t know that he did, given widespread irregularities.

UNIFYING CANDIDATE

Nasa now faces three tactical questions. One, can they keep Raila if he is not the candidate?

Two, if Raila is not the candidate, how does he keep his base enthusiastic to motivate high voter turnout?

Three, how does Nasa counter the narrative that Raila is not electable if he is the candidate?

That last question is important: The whole point of this ‘Raila is unelectable’ narrative is to explain away any fraud and to silence Raila if he should claim that the 2017 election has been stolen.

Given this tactical conundrum, the Opposition may just give up the search for a unifying candidate.

They could, instead, opt for the tactic of locking out Jubilee from their strongholds and thus force a run-off.

They tried this in 1997. Charity Ngilu, Kijana Wamalwa, Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki all joined the presidential race on the theory that they would lock Moi out of their strongholds of Eastern, Nyanza, Western and Nairobi.

That would have forced a run-off. Nasa might decide to risk the same strategy.

Mr Wetang’ula would lock out Jubilee in Bungoma, Musalia would do the same in Vihiga and Kakamega.

Kalonzo would secure Eastern and Raila Nyanza. Kalonzo’s Wiper Party and Raila’s Orange Democratic Movement would lock in the Coast.

This would force a run-off. In the run-off, Nasa constituent parties would throw their weight behind the Nasa principal still in the race.

Nasa co-principals Musalia Mudavadi (left) and Moses Wetang'ula leave the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) offices in Nairobi on April 6, 2017 after a meeting with the officials. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

TACTICAL SUICIDE
However, as I pointed out in 1997, this is tactical suicide. Jubilee can easily win the election just as President Moi did in 1997; by being a strong second in all of the Nasa principals’ strongholds.

In 1997, Mr Moi was second to Mr Kijana Wamalwa in western; second to Mrs Ngilu in Ukambani and second to Mr Kibaki in Meru.

In fact, by being second in both Ukambani and Meru, Mr Moi won in Eastern, beating both Ngilu and Kibaki.

A lock out strategy with the aim of forcing a runoff is a hostage of fortune.

Nasa must surely know that Jubilee is not looking at a run-off, which would be a risky gamble.

Jubilee will invest all its energy in a first round win. A first round victory should be Nasa’s strategy too.

However, there is also a long-term issue at play. The problems that Nasa now faces arise from the logic of the presidential system and the voting rules in place.

A president must win an absolute majority, that is, 50 per cent plus one vote.

This combination — a presidential system and absolute majority rule — drives politics towards a two-party system.

This tendency is called Duverger’s Law, named after Maurice Duverger, the French sociologist who first described it.

SMALLER PARTIES
There are two reasons for the tendency. One, a majoritarian system rewards parties that fuse into a larger party.

Politicians who lead small parties improve their chances of winning if their parties merge.

This is what constituent parties in Nasa are really trying to do.

Two, over time voters cast their ballots tactically, eventually abandoning weak parties that have no chance of winning.

This is what we described as a ‘potential victor’s windfall’.

A candidate will get more votes than her support base suggests if the voters believe that she will win.

Conversely, a candidate will get fewer votes than her support base suggests if the voters believe that she will lose.

This is probably what explains Mr Mudavadi’s poor showing in 2013 and also for Mr Odinga’s very strong showing in Western the same year.

What Duverger’s Law suggests is that so long as we keep the current system, Kenya will drift towards and eventually consolidate as a two-party democracy.

Seen thus, Nasa’s groans, fits and starts as it searches for a presidential candidate are probably the painful, poorly-glimpsed beginnings of a two-party system in Kenya.

Wachira Maina is a constitutional lawyer [email protected]