Relying on activists in presidential campaigns is not a smart strategy

One day in late 2002, I was holed up in the office of a Nairobi-based NGO downloading a report they had contracted me to do for them.

Suddenly, a well-known civil society luminary breezily stormed into the open-plan office which, in the nature of things, was run by fellow activists.

He had just flown in from Addis Ababa and was eager to immediately touch base with his peers.

As his friends in the office crowded around him to share banter, they were all very excited with the impending showdown between Kanu and the National Rainbow Coalition.

At one point, the visitor exclaimed: “Imagine what we can do for these guys (Narc) if they take us on board!” Luckily I was sitting quite a distance for them to notice me nearly choke as I did a double-take of mirth.

MANAGE CAMPAIGN

Nothing can be more amusing than the pretence that armchair activists can manage a serious presidential campaign.

As I well knew at the time, the Narc campaign was being run by experienced politicians and strategists who had been in the trenches since 1992 and even before then.

They were hardened veterans who had not been confined to desks in Addis Ababa penning reports on civil rights advocacy or globe-trotting to attend seminars in Europe and America.

Not long afterwards, I was told of a certain well-known political analyst keen to sell his “expertise” who had dashed to introduce himself to Mwai Kibaki in a Mombasa hotel as the Narc candidate was standing at the buffet lunch table with Democratic Party colleague from Mbooni Joseph Munyao. The intruder was brushed off.

BEAUTIFUL MANIFESTOS

Politicians with enough sense know where to put theorists and activists.

They certainly have their uses, like conceptualising and writing beautiful manifestos, which the politicians don’t read.

If you’ve ever been involved in a high-level political campaign, you will have noticed the candidate’s inner circle comprises aides and allies who have been together forever on campaign battlefronts.

Hirelings who offer themselves as scholars from academia or as “researchers” from the media are kept at the periphery.

WRITE SPEECHES

They may not know it, but they are simply the hired help, left to write speeches. Or they get dispatched to TV talk shows to push their party’s line.

The lawyers among them will be tasked with drafting the now mandatory coalition MoUs.

There is a reason why they are kept at arm’s length. Too much theorising suffocates a campaign.

Hands-on experience and pragmatism is more valued.

ELECTED MP

When former vice-president and ex-University of Nairobi vice-chancellor no less, the late Josephat Karanja, first successfully debuted as an elected MP for Mathare, he did so through the help of an illiterate councillor called Ndururu Kiboro who had vast influence in the constituency.

Ndururu’s name has been memorialised in a public primary school named after him along Juja Road, Nairobi.

Previous Mathare MPs – the late Munyua Waiyaki and the late Andrew Ngumba – found the going impossible without the support of Councillor Ndururu.

PUSH ENVELOPE

One does not need to push the envelope that far. However, do you need advisers who spend the whole day giving you “scenarios” and hypotheses or do you need those who brief you on the practicalities of how to penetrate hostile electoral territory, and who to poach there?

Do you need aides who are long on strategy and short on tactics? And what about fund-raising?

This is at the heart of any presidential campaign. You won’t go far with activists, who are poor at mobilising cash.

SPADEWORK

On this front, businessmen do the spadework.

Like any other presidential candidate, Daniel arap Moi found non-political professionals useful to an extent.

Their utility to him was limited to doing long write-ups and propaganda pieces in the newspapers for Kanu, or being used to bait other professionals.

When it came to infiltrating Opposition parties and their zones, Moi had a deep pool of more proactive operatives to pick from.

When you look keenly at the ongoing campaigns, you can tell which are being run by realists and which are over-relying on political amateurs.

Warigi is a socio-political commentator [email protected]