DAVID MONDA: Why Raila, Ruto need minor parties

As the politics of 2022 heat up, the sands of the political landscape shift daily. It is no secret that in the political realm, Raila Odinga and William Ruto are the two front-runners in the run-up to the election. However, they have both been aggressively courting minor political parties with the view of forming formidable political coalitions.

Why do Raila and Ruto need the minor parties?

Both candidates need to court a formidable pool of minor parties who will provide them with the votes to win the election with an unassailable margin to lower the probability of a court challenge.

This unassailable margin will also enhance the legitimacy of the winning team. The other reason is to avoid a runoff. A treacherous second round of electoral campaigning would be costly and time-consuming for both candidates, a prospect they do not relish.

Ironically, it is these minor parties that will become the eventual kingmakers in the treacherous game of Kenyan politics. This is because the race between the two is expected to be remarkably close. For either Raila or Ruto, uniting with minor parties provides an ethnic coalition that represents the face of Kenya in tandem with the head of the presidential ticket, making the joint ticket more electable.

In exchange for their support and their kingmaker role, minor parties will be looking to extract significant concessions from the presidential ticket flag-bearer. This can be in terms of Cabinet appointments, monetary compensation, distribution of nominated seats in Parliament and improving the prospects of the minor party leaders’ electoral runs in 2027.

Both Raila and Ruto have attractive chips to dish out. Raila comes with the de facto endorsement of the exiting chief executive. He will have the advantage of the resources of the state in advancing his political candidacy.

The conundrum for Raila in this mix is his perceived closeness to the Uhuru administration. The administration has not delivered on many of its 2017 electoral promises and is mired in a litany of mega corruption scandals. Raila has also lost his reputation as a fighter for the poor and appears to be another politician eager to feather his nest with the largesse of the state.

In addition to this, Rails remains an anathema in the Mt Kenya region where a sizable number of voters reside. A minor party player nominated to the Deputy President docket will need to bring with them the option of a basketful of votes from Central Kenya and the ability to keep coalition members of the minor party happy.

Raila’s curse in Central is Ruto’s blessing. Ruto appears to have major influence in the region and has been working hard to consolidate this by bringing several ethno-regional notables from Mt Kenya into his political orbit.

However, the perception that Ruto is a regional candidate, whose base is in Rift Valley and who garners votes in Mt Kenya solely due to the region’s bias towards Raila, has the effect of alienating voters from other parts of Kenya. Ruto also needs a minor party candidate as running mate to take a chunk of Raila’s votes in his strongholds in Nyanza, Coast and Western.

This is where the influence of the minor party candidate will come significantly into play. Not only in terms of making the joint presidential ticket exciting, but also to give it the legitimacy as being a significant partnership with a national outlook.

The 2022 election will be a battle of attrition, with both Raila and Ruto looking to outdo each other by chipping away at the adversary’s base. The minor party vote will get either candidate the votes to win the election in the first round. A major first-round win also enhances the new regime’s legitimacy and stability. This race has just begun.