This week has seen the main political groupings sharpening their messaging as they get deeper into the forays of the Kenyan hinterland.
While Deputy President started off in Thika and Gatundu over the weekend, he has spent lots of time in Meru and finally Embu region.
Raila Odinga has been in Lamu, trying to take stock of lost ground, what with Joho’s brother joining UDA in Mombasa and declaring his intention to contest the Mombasa senatorial seat on the party’s ticket.
Raila was famously quoted alleging that Feisal Bader, who is allied to William Ruto, won the Msambweni seat fraudulently.
This is now water under the bridge and it's clear that the political map of 2017 has significantly changed in that hitherto strong opposition zone.
Jubilee has also collapsed and erstwhile allies went their separate ways.
The One Kenya Alliance under the leadership of Kalonzo Musyoka, and the patronage of Gideon Moi, has slowed down on claims that they had refused to be forced to support the bid of Raila, their de facto leader under the now moribund Nasa alliance.
The fact that they don’t have a presidential candidate despite promising one by October/November signals a likelihood of disintegration sooner or later.
Musalia Mudavadi seems keen on running his own presidential race this time around, while Kalonzo has suffered a serious body blow, with all the three governors in his Ukambani stronghold backing Raila.
A recent by-election for an MCA seat in Makueni was quite telling in that his Wiper party was a distant third after an independent candidate won, followed closely by UDA.
At the centre of this contestation is the messaging to win the heart and soul of Kenyans on improving the lives of Kenyans.
This week also marked the 90th birthday of President Mwai Kibaki, the third and so far the most successful president in matters of economy.
So the two main sides of the political divide sharpened their messaging, one pushing for the bottom-up model, with the other promising a Sh6,000 stipend for the unemployed.
It’s quite interesting to see that the bottom-up narrative has left the boardrooms to political rallies, with masses shouting back and understanding it to mean that it’s about lifting people up from their current economic condition.
The unemployment rates are fairly high. While the bottom-up model promises a hand up, the stipend model is basically a handout, some begging of sorts famously known as hand in cup or serikali saidia.
Clearly, these two approaches define the right of centre versus left of centre ideological divide that has come to shape the 2022 political contest.
The economic disparities in this country are so real that if you fly over Nairobi city, as you move from the east to the west, it’s akin to flying from Africa to Europe.
The differences are glaring to the naked eye. This is happening in all our neighbourhoods and the conflict of development is real.
This week, I took time to meet a group of women around Kamakis, along the Eastern Bypass.
This area is in Gatong’ora ward in Ruiru constituency.
Heretofore, the place has been fairly rural but with the advent of the bypass, there has been booming development in the last decade.
Traditional agricultural life has been rudely interrupted by commercial ventures, churches, outlets and most profoundly the ‘gated communities’ in controlled development schemes.
In between the leafy houses, therein lies some families living as they have been used to for decades.
They are however subjected to new rules in terms of the type of houses that they can build.
Their bone of contention is the rules that the newcomers are dictating to them since they have the money and the influence within the ambit of the formal state.
This is some form of internal colonialism; a conflict in the development paradigm.
Their bone of contention includes the schools that their children go to and the hospitals.
There is no public school as the land has been grabbed for very private use, and the local Mutonya health centre is in deplorable condition.
The nouveau riche have private schools and clinics.
As one woman put it, "We too would like to have good houses costing millions just like our neighbours but we also need to put up our boys in their own thingira (traditional houses) after going through their rite of passage. It appears that these new houses can possibly attract rain just like trees and we too would like to own them, but in the meantime, let’s be allowed to put up houses that suit our needs.”
The narrative that will thus resonate most with many Kenyans is the one that not only promises to lift many of them out of poverty, but also ensure the peaceful co-existence of the competing levels of economic development.
