One of the incidental burdens of being a media commentator is that friends and acquaintances will often put to you questions that you cannot answer; at least not directly.
Let me give two recent examples of this:
The first question (which I was asked a month or so ago) is this: Given that so many of those who support Cord, and who voted for Raila Odinga in the 2013 presidential election, believe that he did not really lose that election but was rigged out, why was there not a massive turnout for voter registration in the Cord zones? How come there was no real difference in magnitude of newly registered voters in Raila’s strongholds than in Uhuru Kenyatta’s political backyard, where some degree of complacency would be understandable?
Well, the short answer is that Raila’s Cord is obviously still much weaker than Uhuru’s Jubilee when it comes to resource mobilisation as well as the logistics of voter registration and turnout. For here in Kenya, political anguish, as we have seen so many times, is a short-term emotion.
When election results that demolish the expectations of any group are announced, they react as though it is the end of the world. But give them time, and they easily reconcile themselves to what they had earlier considered to be an epic catastrophe.
Thus, unless leaders can motivate their supporters to register in large numbers, most Kenyans will go about their daily affairs with little regard for the need to register to vote, especially in a non-election year.
In my observation, what Cord leader Raila Odinga has incomparable expertise in, is what may be defined as generating political fanaticism. Getting the crowds of his supporters so worked up that it seems they would do anything to see him elected president.
But to convert this hyped-up emotional support into actual votes requires a very different talent. And, whether or not you believe in these accusations of underhand methods used to “steal his victory” by all accounts such clinical planning and comprehensive logistics have been lacking in all of Raila’s presidential campaigns.
The second question is perhaps more interesting, and it can be phrased as follows: Does this man William Ruto, who is supposedly a very clever man and a deep political strategist, really believe that he will get so much as a single vote from Central Kenya in 2022, if indeed Uhuru is reelected in 2017? Can there be any doubt that the very day that Uhuru Kenyatta is sworn in for his second and final term as president, will see the most complete reversal of Ruto’s fortunes and that he will be treated as exactly what he will be then: a dispensable tool of the Central Kenya political elite, who has suddenly become little more than a nuisance?
Well, it is true enough that what we may call “political reciprocity” is a purely mythical animal as far as the Kenyan experience is concerned. We have yet to see one well-defined political vote bloc (Kikuyu, Luo, Kalenjin or Kamba) receive support which successfully elevated “one of their own” to the presidency, and then in due course come out to return the favour and vote as one for a candidate from the key bloc that supported “their son” in the previous election.
As I say, this kind of thing is theoretically possible, but we have yet to see it actually happen in practice. So there is really no reason to expect that – assuming Uhuru is reelected – the 2022 election will see the massed Central Kenya voters dutifully lining up to support Ruto as their chosen presidential candidate.
So what was my answer to this question? Well, it was simply this: Do not underestimate William Ruto.
Given that he has faced so many setbacks in his political career – of which the ICC was only the most recent and perhaps most formidable – and somehow always emerged stronger than ever, if there is a way to outmanoeuvre the Central Kenya oligarchs by 2022, he is sure to find it.