Jubilee, Nasa yet to craft message for voters outside ‘strongholds’

The General Election campaign is now in full swing. In some ways, it is heavily reminiscent of the 2013 polls: the presidential race will boil down to a contest between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mr Raila Odinga, and the cast of characters supporting each leader looks familiar.

But a closer look at the campaigns reveals a number of important differences to recent elections. Both Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga have had to radically change the messages that they use to connect to voters because of changing circumstances over the past decade. As a result, both are casting around for a new way to frame their appeals – not always successfully.

So what makes for an effective narrative? And what lessons can the 2017 campaign teach us about the state of Kenyan politics?

One of the most common opinions I have heard when talking about the presidential race with friends and colleagues is that neither side has so far come up with a compelling narrative that resonates with voters. As Prof Karuti Kanyinga has put it, the campaign seems to lack an organising principle.

Of course, elections are complicated things and cannot be reduced to just one issue. Not only does each party make a large number of promises, but different themes also tend to come to the fore in different places.

INTEGRATED APPEALS

However, these caveats notwithstanding, political communication tends to be far more effective when a range of appeals are effectively integrated under a common argument that voters can easily understand and identify with.

In 2007, the dividing lines were clear. The Party of National Unity (PNU) represented the establishment and sought to preserve the status quo. By contrast, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) promised far-reaching constitutional reforms, including devolution. As a result, debates over majimbo (regional governments), and what majimbo would mean, came to dominate the campaign.

This framing was ideal for Mr Odinga, the ODM candidate, because it enabled him to appeal to a broad variety of voters through a single slogan.

His supporters from different communities in various parts of the country did not have to agree on the most important issue for the opposition to address, because the promise of devolution was that each community would be able to elect its own leaders and set its own priorities. Partly as a result, Mr Odinga came as close as he ever has to occupying State House.

RADICAL CHANGE

Things had changed radically by 2013. By the time of that election, the 2010 Constitution had been introduced and devolution was becoming a reality. This took the wind out of Mr Odinga’s sails: it is almost impossible to effectively campaign on something that has already been delivered.

This did not stop the opposition from trying, arguing that the government could not be trusted to effectively implement devolution, but arguments about implementation usually have too many shades of grey to truly excite the electorate.

Partly as a result, it was the recently formed Jubilee Alliance that gained momentum by pushing a message that established a new dividing line within the electorate.

The election hinged on how voters felt about the candidature of Mr Kenyatta and Mr William Ruto – the “alliance of the accused” – and their prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.

KEY PRINCIPLE

In this context, UhuRuto cleverly made sovereignty the key organising principle of their campaign. While the Jubilee Alliance was presented as the defender of Kenyan interests on the world stage, the ICC and “meddling” foreign donors were depicted as neocolonial imperialists determined to undermine Kenyan sovereignty.

Carefully constructing a siege mentality around their Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities, Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto hit upon a powerful way to emphasise the dividing line between “them” and “us”.

This narrative was particularly important for Mr Kenyatta because it helped to compensate for some of his potential weaknesses as a candidate. There were two big dangers for the president in the run up to 2013.

The first was that his vast wealth would make him vulnerable to an opposition campaign focusing on inequality and land alienation. The second was that he would struggle to mobilise support within his own community following his poor showing in the 2002 election, when he was widely viewed to be a puppet of the Moi regime.

Against this backdrop, Mr Kenyatta’s prosecution by the ICC was an electoral boon. In addition to emphasising his claim to be a defender of Kikuyu interests, and so rehabilitating Mr Kenyatta within his own community, the campaign’s focus on sovereignty enabled Jubilee to deflect attention away from more problematic issues.

SLOGANS IRRELEVANT

The challenge for both Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga in 2017 is that their most effective campaign slogans of the past are no longer relevant. On the one hand, Mr Odinga’s team will sound tired and repetitive if he speaks too much about devolution, especially as it doesn’t seem like the government has any plans to close down the counties.

On the other, Mr Kenyatta’s camp can no longer hope to engender a siege mentality because the ICC proceedings have gone away and international donors have been careful to play a less interventionist role.

Mr Kenyatta’s team was quick to recognise this, and responded by rotating their campaign through 180 degrees.

Whereas Jubilee’s message in 2013 was divisive and confrontational, more recently the government has used its transition from a coalition to a party to push the idea that it is an inclusive party ruling in the interests of all. The main slogans that Jubilee has adopted – Tuko Pamoja, Building a better Kenya, and so on – all reflect this change of focus.

CLASSIC TROPES

For their part, the Odinga camp have fallen back on classic opposition tropes that are used by parties around the world, emphasising the value of change and the strength of their support base in an attempt to persuade Kenyans that victory is possible.

The catchphrases used by leaders of the National Super Alliance (Nasa) – 10 Million Strong, Vindu Vichenjanga (things are changing), and so on – all speak to this theme.

But while both sides have clearly thought long and hard about their messaging, neither has yet hit upon a narrative that resonates beyond their heartlands.

Although they will deny it in public, this point is understood by the public relations teams working for Jubilee and Nasa – some of whom are starting to worry.

Given this, it will not be surprising if the limited penetration of leaders’ slogans inspires a change in the way the campaign is fought over the next month. As the candidates scramble to capture swing voters and make sure that their supporters go to the polls, the amount of money spent on vote buying, and the amount of time devoted to negative campaigning, is likely to increase.

SOMETHING IMPORTANT

The struggle of both sides to effectively frame their messages tells us something important about Kenyan politics: ideas matter. Why else would the government be spending so much money on hiring foreign consultants to help them get the message right?

Some people will be very resistant to this argument. They will say that Kenyan politics is all about ethnicity and that all you need to be able to do is add up the size of the different communities and you can tell who is going to win. But while this is a popular refrain, it is not – and never has been – entirely true.

Ethnicity is, of course, one of the most significant building blocks of Kenyan politics, but it is not the only one. Even if people are predisposed to support you because of your ethnicity, mobilizing voters is harder if you fail to capture their hearts and minds.

As Mr Musalia Mudavadi found to his cost in 2013 when he failed to secure a majority of votes in Luhya areas, ethnicity does not get you very far if you do not have credibility.

'ETHNIC' CAPITAL

Ngala Chome’s analysis of the success of Mr Mike Sonko demonstrates this point well: he lacks “significant ethnic capital” in Nairobi, yet this has not undermined his rise to power.

The electoral fortunes of Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga are further evidence of the importance of ideas. Getting the message right helped to turn Mr Kenyatta from a political also-ran into the president, while Mr Odinga’s most rhetorically effective campaign in 2007 was the one in which he out-mobilised a sitting president.

It is important to note that this argument should not be taken to imply that politics in Kenya is driven by ideology or that voters spend their time reading party manifestos.

Successful messages often resonate precisely because they play on pre-existing stereotypes and tap into the hopes and fears of specific communities. In this sense, the power of political ideas cannot be separated from the underlying reality of ethnic politics, gives them their strength.

However, the fact that ideas, messages and identities are deeply intertwined does not mean that the ideas themselves are not important, or that politicians can win elections without them.

Nic Cheeseman is professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Twitter: @fromagehomme