Viable presidential aspirants are eying running mates from the Mt Kenya region. The vote catchment has always gunned for the top. A second slot is a consolation prize. It is also bait for votes.
The strategy is not surprising. What might surprise is who it would be for each team. The United Democratic Alliance leader William Ruto could pick Mathira MP Rigathi Gachagua.
The DP has asked Nyeri voters to free Gachagua from county campaigns. He wants the MP to help in the national hunt for votes.
Gachagua, who has been charged in court with corruption, has dubious and faint national credentials. He is notorious for ethnic slurs, especially against ODM leader Raila Odinga.
For the ascendant Azimio La Umoja plunk, the search for a running mate has thinned to three possibilities: Nakuru Governor Lee Kinyanjui, Narc Kenya leader Martha Karua and 2013 presidential candidate Peter Kenneth.
Kinyanjui's county hosted the first Azimio La Umoja convention in August. The articulate former MP is a constant around Raila during meetings around and outside the Mt Kenya region.
Peter Kenneth has been around Raila longer. He was first elected as Gatanga MP in 2002, on the Liberal Democratic Party ticket. Raila Odinga's LDP joined Mwai Kibaki's Democratic Party and Kijana Wamalwa's Ford Kenya to form the National Rainbow Coalition. The behemoth saw Kibaki win the presidency during his second attempt.
Karua may bring gender parity, rights advocacy credentials, and tough posturing. But cynics see another Karua, a former Gichugu MP, and a 2017 Kirinyaga gubernatorial candidate.
Her role in the aborted promise of a new constitution within the first 100 days of the Kibaki presidency, bungled 2007 presidential election, and ominous swearing-in of Kibaki at sundown are signs of her shifty loyalties.
The ambitious Karua may start presidential succession campaigns a day after the 2022 election. Ruto's falling out with President Uhuru Kenyatta sets a destabilising precedent for erratic DPs.
Baiting women's vote aside, Karua as a running mate does not complement the transformative agenda of the architect of the Azimio La Umoja platform. Further, the firm persona of Raila and the cantankerous Karua don't rhyme. The pairing may backfire sooner than anticipated.
Further, she may not bring financial capital to the ticket, what with her uneasy relations with President Uhuru Kenyatta. The Kenyattas are associates of owners of old money in Central Kenya.
Kinyanjui's base in the Kikuyu diaspora of Nakuru may not excite Mt Kenya, especially the Kikuyu of Kiambu, Nyeri, Murang'a, Nyandarua, and Kirinyaga counties.
Kenneth has a higher national appeal, and tested performance as Gatanga MP. He is gentle, and likely to attract big money to the Azimio La Umoja ticket, from Murang'a, the county of business tycoons.
Kenneth may bring the presidency closer to Murang'a, and thus the possibility of a higher voter turnout. Murang'a, a key Kikuyu county, has not produced a president. Founding President Jomo Kenyatta and his scion, Uhuru, are from Kiambu. President Kibaki is from Nyeri.
The choice of running mate might determine winning potential, credibility and the stability of the post-Uhuru regime.
Picking a presidential running mate from Central Kenya was always on the cards for the DP. The decision perpetuates the 60-year Kalenjin-Kikuyu alternate dominance of State power.
About 3 million votes from the Kalenjin counties and about 6 million from the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru come with delusion of entitlement.
The DP's sulk about the amity between the President and Raila Odinga comes with a rider: The President's preference for the former PM as his successor spites 8 million of 'us' who voted Jubilee in 2017. The sympathy bait seeks to bolster the betrayal card.
The pairing, and vote fiddling, worked for Uhuru and Ruto during the 2013 and 2017 general elections. The 2022 election might pan out differently.
