Cord is increasingly being boxed into a corner to announce its presidential flagbearer. I attended the release of the latest Ipsos polls, where Tom Wolf said part of Raila and Cord’s low ratings compared to Uhuru and the Jubilee Party is because the opposition has not decided who will be the presidential candidate.
When I asked who will be Jubilee’s candidate, he replied President Uhuru Kenyatta. When I prodded him to support his assertion, he started waffling.
Me: As a pollster, why is Uhuru’s 2017 candidature a forgone conclusion?
Wolf: Because it is not being contested?
Me: It is not being contested by who?
Wolf: [Waffles, he never gave any response]
Me: Who is contesting Raila’s 2017 bid?
Wolf: There have been headlines, even in the the Star newspaper, calling on him to retire. Last week, we also saw co-principal Moses Wetang’ula telling him to retire.
Another journalist asked why he has consistently asked respondents if Raila should retire from politics – a question that is never asked of any other candidate.
Wolf: Because the question is sponsored.
Opinion polls in this country have become avenues to measure supposedly public opinion on the preferability of presidential hopefuls.
However, when it comes to Raila, we see a detour from preferability to suitability. This is where pollsters like Wolf mislead the public. It is where they deviate from polling as a credible social science to pollaganda, outcome-based polling designed to generate preferential results, often to manipulate public perception.
Each poll release comes with heightened demands for Raila to quit politics, or endorse someone else. The false narrative goes that though he cannot win, he can galvanise a winning coalition for another candidate. Ironically many of the ‘other’ candidates whom Raila should supposedly endorse rank lower in public ratings than he himself.
These arguments mask the real issues Kenyans face and which will next year take some 15 million of us to the polls.
Kenyans want the next president to get back to the basics of government and fight graft. They want to know how the massive funds borrowed in the past four years – more than the past 10 years – have been utilised. A great number of young people want an assurance that the future is still within their reach – that getting a degree still means something and that there exists a real economy to absorb their ideas, tap their energy and feel their passion.
Women want empowerment issues returned to the fore, and the two-thirds gender rule implemented. Teachers, nurses and doctors want agreements honoured. University students want a predictable loans disbursement schedule. The sick want accessible and affordable healthcare. The youth want the Youth Enterprise Fund and the National Youth Service to serve them, not tenderpreneurs.
Human rights groups want to work where human dignity counts. Those we put in harm’s way to annihilate terrorists want us to honour them and not take their service for granted. When they die, they expect us to give them dignified send-offs and compensate their families. Sportsmen and women want to fly our flag, and benefit from it more than the Rio joyriders.
Kenya’s survival as a vibrant multiparty democracy based on the rule of law with individual freedoms is on the line. For most of us who support Raila, the real question is who is best suited to be the next leader of our country. That to me is Raila. The alternative is unimaginable.