Party primaries will determine whether the Orange Democratic Movement, a lead plank in the Azimio La Umoja Movement, is ready to replace Jubilee as the next ruling party. Party nominations will also determine whether Raila Odinga is willing to be the fifth president.
Bungled party nominations leave aspirants disgruntled, and party members disenchanted. These always lead to defections and voter apathy. These are fatal blows on presidential vote count.
Low voter turnout, especially in a party’s strongholds, is a flop signal in an election where every vote counts. It gets worse when voter disenchantment spreads to other party bedrocks.
ODM, the second oldest party after Kanu, therefore, must allow voters to decide their most popular aspirants for various elective seats.
The Homa Bay governor race is a test case, with a disenfranchising history from the mess of 2017 party primaries. The most popular aspirant then, former Kasipul MP Joseph Oyugi Magwanga, won party primaries, but missed the ODM ticket.
A party tribunal sitting at Marsh Park Hotel, Nairobi, and political disputes court, sitting at the Milimani law courts, determined party primaries were rigged. The party awarded direct nomination to the primary poll loser Cyprian Awiti.
A mini Bomas was staged in the county. Armed police surrounded the vote tallying centre and captured Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission officials. The officials declared the loser as the winner.
The High Court sitting in Homa Bay nullified Awiti’s election in 2018. The Court of Appeal, sitting in Kisumu, affirmed the decision of the lower court, after Awiti appealed. Awiti was scared of a by-election, pitting him against the massively popular Oyugi Magwanga, who was running as an independent.
The Supreme Court affirmed the IEBC’s faulty decision in 2019, in what was viewed as a political judgment. A broke government wasn’t ready for a countywide by-election.
The people lost. They felt cheated, abused, and disenfranchised. A replay of the bungle will create voter apathy; it will undermine voter turnout. The people have not forgotten the robbery of 2017.
The IEBC has, so far, approved ODM nomination rules: The party will know who the most popular candidate is through ‘opinion polls’. The other options are consensus and a delegates system. Secret ballot is the last option because it’s a logistical nightmare.
Recent history is worth recalling: During the Msambweni by-election, ODM ‘insiders’ decided Omar Boga was the most popular aspirant. The party’s opinion poll team returned the same verdict.
Feisal Bader, who wanted to fly the ODM flag, boycotted party nominations because the machinery had a ‘preferred’ candidate. An independent candidate won the by-election at the Coast, which is ODM’s bedrock.
If the Msambweni-type opinion polling were conducted across other constituencies, then ODM would be digging a hole. ODM’s redemption strategy is credible primaries. A winning party needs no favourites. ODM top leadership should have no favourites.
The top leadership, including those influential enough to create a perception of official support, should avoid covert endorsements.
In free and fair primaries, and during elections, some big names must fall. This is a standard outcome in democracies.
In Uganda in 2015, one Captain Dononzio Mugabe Kahonda defeated National Resistance Movement’s General Kahinda Otafiire, who was then a Cabinet minister. Museveni did not interfere. He re-appointed Otafiire to the Cabinet. ‘Allowing’ Otafiire to lose gave NRM a veneer of democratic respectability.
ODM needs to rethink party primaries to boost voter turnout, which is a key decider in Raila, the party candidate’s, presidential bid.
