Jubilee Party leaders are talking tough — they want to dislodge ODM from political supremacy in the Coast region. The campaign to reverse the ODM wave, which has been there since the 2007 general election, is led by Deputy President William Ruto, leader of the Majority in the National Assembly and Garissa Township MP Aden Duale, and local politicians such as Kwale Governor Salim Mvurya, Kilifi North MP Gideon Mung’aro and Mombasa businessman Suleiman Shahbal.
DP Ruto recently spent one week at the Coast and in all the rallies he addressed, the message was that ODM’s time was up. The rebranded Jubilee Party was officially launched in Mombasa to epitomise its determination to win Coast in 2017.
Ruto’s visit coincided with corruption allegations facing some ODM counties, and he took the opportunity to chastise Cord governors over the graft claims.
Despite Jubilee’s determination to dislodge ODM and Cord from the Coast, the impact is yet to be felt.
Numerous factors account for this lack of impact. One is voter apathy towards Jubilee. The party is still hugely perceived as an extension of the forces that have continued to marginalise the coastal communities, especially on land issues.
It is a fact that the Jubilee government has been the only one in a long time to dish out title deeds to deserving people in the region. However, the effect of this has been minimal because many of the people who reside outside urban areas and in settlement schemes have been left out of the title deeds programme.
The other factor stymieing JP’s inroads into the Coast region is the perception that the party does not support devolution — the key tenet of Coast politics.
People in this region have equated devolution to a minimised form of federalism — the majimbo form of governance coastal communities have aspired to since Independence. It is this issue of devolution that has given ODM unparalleled support here. This means that if Jubilee Party leaders want support from the Coast, they must publicly play the devolution card.
Corruption allegations are certainly playing against the government among the coastal voters. The national government inaction against corruption cases such as the Eurobond, the NYS scandal and now the alleged loss of Sh5.2 billion has only served to convince the people of this region that the leadership is not serious in the war on graft.
This is why when Ruto criticised the ODM governors for corruption in their counties, critics countered him, saying the Jubilee leadership has no moral authority to lecture anyone about graft.
Finally, the Jubilee Party is not yet localised in this region. Many view the party as alien, largely fronted from the outside. Even though Jubilee has picked Mung’aro, Mvurya and Shahbal to be the Coast home boys of the party, the strings are still pulled from Nairobi. In fact, much of what we hear about the Jubilee Party is when leaders such as Ruto or Duale visit this region. As soon as they depart, JP politics goes to bed.
Contrast this with ODM. The party is not only fronted by local politicians, but they also own it. Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho and his Kilifi counterpart Amason Kingi are the local home boys of the party: They own it.
This is why these two politicians can win an election even without external backing from leaders such as party supremo Raila Odinga.
This is not to say ODM is perfect. In fact, the party has lost a lot of the glamour it enjoyed during the 2007 and the 2013 elections. This is because new political dynamics have cropped up, including persistent criticisms against party nominations, as well as the push for a homegrown party, say Kadu-Asili.
Nevertheless, ODM is still the party to watch. So, if Jubilee leaders are keen to dislodge ODM as the leading party in coastal politics, they will have to do more than political proclamations from public rallies.