By President Uhuru Kenyatta, ODM leader Raila Odinga and the One Kenya Alliance leaders coming together, they are going to suffer the crisis of positioning. Who gets what.
They have brought together an amorphous group that has all the interests of various kingpins, who, of course, represent certain regions, which are supposed to create a massive vote basket.
Kenya Kwanza, on the other hand, is banking on their going directly to the people and these people are a kingless majority who don’t subscribe to personality or the so-called kingpins. They cut across the entire nation.
There is also a small pool of regional kingpins positioning themselves to add to this vote basket of Azimio. Azimio is looking at the chiefs, bringing together personalities and names and individual interests. And very heavy commercial interests too.
Kenya Kwanza is instead going for knocked-down leaders like Musalia and Wetang'ula who are not coming with any constituencies but are coming as mobilisers.
So, the team is largely a people-driven outfit as opposed to a personality-driven outfit that Azimio is – the formation holding big names like Charity Ngilu and the party leaders who have created new outfits.
Azimio has too many chiefs but very few 'Indians' while Kenya Kwanza has too many 'Indians' and very few chiefs. The latter is really hoping that the 'Indians' will take them to State House .at's their ideal scenario.
But again, Azimio has the wherewithal, financial muscle and the connections of the state – the intelligence system with all the information, and the well-oiled propaganda machinery.
The team with more ‘Indians’ has the advantage over the other and recently released opinion polls have shown the ‘Indians’ with their few chiefs are doing well.
The strategy of using too many chiefs and going less to the ‘Indians’ is paying off for Kenya Kwanza. It would be a liability for the other team that has brought in too many chiefs – with political, business interests; technocrats and retiring governors, all looking for appointments in the incoming government.
This is why the team has attracted too many chiefs, but it is the ‘Indians’ that are not biting.
The political analyst spoke to the Star
(Edited by V. Graham)
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