IT is not very often that an election with a clear and undisputed outcome produces no real winners and only losers.
And yet this is what happened at the Malindi by-election, which was persuasively won by ODM’s William Mtengo.
To explain what I mean, let me start with why ODM was a loser in this election.
In 2013, ODM swept through the entire Coast region like a hurricane. Admittedly there were election irregularities here and there, but, by and large, ODM was the party that most Coast residents flocked to. The coastal “ODM wave” of the last general election was indeed comparable to the “Matiba wave” of 1992, in which candidates who stood on Second Liberation hero Kenneth Matiba’s Ford-Asili party were elected irrespective of how formidable their opposing candidate was.
But just three years later, we find that ODM – though admittedly still popular – was forced to join JAP in what was, to speak honestly, an open auction for the votes in Malindi. Both parties spent incredible sums of money – the kind of money not even used in gubernatorial or senatorial elections in 2013.
I personally know of several voters in this constituency who told me that it was the first time in their lives that anyone placed a KSh1,000 note in their hands, and also offered to transport them to the polling booth.
That kind of thing might be understandable in the JAP campaign. After all, in
Wednesday’s paper, The Star reported “New Ford Kenya, UDF, URP and TNA representatives from Kakamega, Bungoma, Vihiga and Busia counties said they need cash to sell Jubilee in the region as many people are hostile towards it”.
But when you see ODM also having to spend vast sums to secure a seat that their candidate won a few years ago with no expenditure to speak of, you have to wonder what 2017 will bring. What is for sure is that ODM’s popularity at the Coast is not what it once was. And ODM has to go back to the drawing board and consider where it went wrong.
Then there is JAP, for which the campaign was led by Hon Gideon Mung’aro. Now, whatever else you may say about Mung’aro, what cannot be denied is that his intentions were good. He is keen to see the Coast embraced inside the current government, knowing that being in opposition does not bring development. And it is development that the coastal people are hungry for, after 50 years of marginalization.
All the same, after having earlier on so bravely defied the ODM chiefs and made the Dabaso Declaration a few years back, the essence of which was that coastal unity within “our own party” was the first step towards ending marginalisation, why then did he go and make a U-turn and ask the voters of Malindi to support JAP? And why did he do so without at least first trying to see if the people of the region were indeed willing to support such a party, so that we too – like all major vote blocs – would be able to negotiate from a position of strength for our share of the “national cake”?
I regret to state that Mung’aro threw away a position of the greatest influence, within the Coast region, when he led the JAP campaign. Not that I doubt his good intentions in doing this: Seeking to gain the benefits of development from the government is, after all, what he was elected to do for his people. But it was the wrong move at the wrong time in the wrong place, to have been part of the JAP campaign.
Finally, I would address the candidates who ran on the smaller "coastal" parties with the support of the Kaya elders. To these people – who suffered catastrophic defeat after initially appearing to have a chance – I would pass on this message:
You have a painful decision to make. If there is one lesson for you from the by- election, it is that without resources, your ideals cannot get very far. It is all very well to dream of a coastal party. But your none of your candidates who ran on just such tickets in the by- election got close to 1,000 votes, while the winner got over 10,000 votes.
So the time has now come for the Kaya elders to sit down for a deep reassesment, to which they should invite prominent local leaders like Gideon Mung’aro. The time has come for reconciliation and for gong back to the drawing board.