MUGA: When one big tribe becomes two small tribes

The Kikuyu community of Central Kenya and their leaders have long played a key role in just about anything of real significance that happens in this country.

We could mention their leading role in the agitation for independence; their oversize representation in the early Kenyan cabinets in the1960s and 1970s at a time when – allowing for the growing inequities of the time – “things worked as they should”.

Then again the Kikuyu community played a leading role in the struggle for a return to multiparty democracy in the early 1990s. And again, a leading role in the “indigenisation of the economy” over the past decades. And so on.

All of which has led to the generally accepted wisdom that a non-Kikuyu president must of necessity have a Kikuyu Deputy President.

But the main reason for the Kikuyu dominating public life in quite this way is not just their entrepreneurial prowess or their proactive politics, but rather their sheer raw numbers. They are, by some distance, the biggest of the big tribes.

Now it seems that this big tribe is preparing to reduce itself to two small tribes come the general election later this year.

This is something that has happened before: I refer to the 1992 general election, which featured two very prominent Kikuyu leaders: the late Kenneth Matiba, who was a hero of the second liberation; and Mwai Kibaki, who came into that election as a former vice president, and a very popular politician in his own right.

In that election, Matiba got 26 per cent of all votes cast; Kibaki got 20 per cent. And though both men did get some votes from all over the country, by and large, they mostly got votes from their Central Kenya backyards.

Given the rules for presidential elections at that time, the serving president, Daniel Moi, cruised to victory with a mere 36 per cent of the vote – a full 10 per cent less than the combined tally of Matiba and Kibaki.

Once the Central Kenya vote had been divided between those two giants, the Kikuyu (and their affiliated Meru and Embu communities) might as well have been “two small tribes” – or at best, two medium-sized tribes. For they had dispersed their electoral clout by dividing their votes between two strong candidates.

Now as things stand, we do not see one strong Kikuyu candidate running for president, let alone two.

I do not know just when and where a decision was made that it would be a major political blunder to have yet another Kikuyu president succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta. But that seems to be the case, as we have yet to see a single Kikuyu presidential candidate (and there are at least half a dozen of them) generate any real excitement among the voters of Central Kenya.

The debate seems to be more focused on each of the frontrunners, Deputy President Dr William Ruto and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, being obliged to nominate a Kikuyu running mate.

But this is where a problem arises:

If Dr Ruto were to win, and in the process get more votes from Western Kenya, for example, than from Central Kenya, even allowing for a deputy president who was a Kikuyu, would he feel any particular obligation to address any pressing concerns the Kikuyu might have? Would he not feel a bigger obligation to the voters of Western Kenya?

And in the same way, if Raila should win, and in the process receive more votes from the Coast, for example, than from Central Kenya, even if he had a Kikuyu deputy president, would he not be more likely to focus on the longstanding grievances of the Coast, than on what Central Kenya might want?

The fact is that the Kikuyu’s massive voting power only retains its potency if all those votes are in one basket.

And so, although for all other seats, the voters of Central Kenya may scatter their votes as they please, when it comes to presidential votes, the ambitious economic agenda that the region's governors collectively aspire to, will only receive presidential support if all those votes go to one candidate – and that candidate wins.