After months of exhausting and tortuous campaigning, adversaries Raila Odinga and William Ruto will face off in a presidential contest that will change the contours of Kenyan politics.
Many careers potentially will be destroyed, at least for five years, and new blood will be infused. Careers will be made as well for well-funded, even talented greenhorns.
Once bosom friends, Raila and Ruto acrimoniously fell out over a decade ago and their bitter rivalry has shaped the country’s political landscape since then.
A vote for Raila would imply Uhuru persuaded a lot of people. He gets credited for it. If people vote for Ruto against his wishes, then they will say they rejected him
Tuesday’s vote will be the moment of truth for the contestants and for the Republic of Kenya.
Away from the campaign circus and hubris, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission will determine which man will be the next occupant of State House.
The vote will also have consequences for President Uhuru Kenyatta who is backing Raila’s presidency to the hilt and venomously opposes his deputy Ruto, the animosity has been palpable.
Prof Macharia Munene of USIU says to some extent the election will be a referendum on Uhuru “having come out so strongly and in a very loud way as if he is a candidate. It cannot be ignored that a vote for Raila would imply that he [Uhuru] persuaded a lot of people to go along. He gets credited for it. If people vote for Ruto against his wishes, then they will say they rejected him,” Prof Munene told the Star.
Uhuru will be diminished.
If Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya loses the polls, big names such as Martha Karua, Kalonzo Musyoka, Peter Kenneth, Charity Ngilu, Peter Munya, Hassan Joho and Wycliffe Oparanya will be out in the cold.
Raila, Kalonzo and Karua have been outside government for the past 10 years.
However, should Ruto lose the election, there would equally be many casualties in his team, most conspicuously is ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi.
Others would be National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi, Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua, his Kilifi counterpart Amason Kingi and Kwale’s Salim Mvurya.
Even after the campaigns officially ended, both teams are still making last-ditch efforts to secure victory.
While little has been said of the nature of the tallying centre Ruto has set up, sources in Raila’s team indicated that he has set up an elaborate infrastructure. The tallying centre, housed at one of the coalition’s strategic assets, has 47 workstations manned by three staffers each, a coordinator and two clerks.
The clerks will track data sent by agents from polling stations and tally the results.
Raila’s presidential campaign chief legal adviser Paul Mwangi confirmed to the Star they have set up what he termed a “command centre” for parallel tallying.
“Yes, we have a command centre to receive all the results. We should have all results from all the polling stations across the country as soon as they are announced,” Mwangi said.
He said they are all set and preparations are complete.
Every serious political party has a parallel tallying centre. As to where it is located, we cannot disclose whether it’s in a bungalow or on top of a hill
Mwangi also disclosed that their agents at the county and constituency tallying centres are all lawyers to get it right with the law.
“At the end of the day, as we have come to realise, voting is also a legal process and you need to get the legal issues right,” he said.
A source in Ruto’s camp intimated to the Star the DP has equally set up a tallying centre whose location remains a tightly guarded secret to prevent attacks by state operatives.
“Every serious political party has a parallel tallying centre. As to where it is located, we cannot disclose whether it’s in a bungalow or on top of a hill ,” the member of the Ruto team said.
Ruto’s team on Monday morning is set to unveil a media centre that insiders say would be crucial in coordinating reports from across the country as people vote.
Whereas Raila started active campaigns in late 2021, Ruto had hit the road running as early as 2018 in what his boss President Kenyatta said was their point of departure.
God has delivered us here. Those who said we won’t be on the ballot should know this country is not for the few and the ‘deep state’. We will overcome
Despite having started campaigning almost immediately after Uhuru’s handshake with Raila in March that year, the DP was still running to Kiambu on Saturday to beat the 6pm deadline for campaign rallies.
Compared with Raila, Ruto combed through many villages and sometimes repeatedly, especially in Mt Kenya
“God has delivered us here. Those who said that we won’t be on the ballot should know that this country is not for the few and the ‘deep state’. We will overcome,” Ruto told his charged supporters at Nyayo Stadium as he concluded his campaigns on Saturday.
Raila is equally viewed to have put up an organised campaign that dwarfs his past four unsuccessful runs.
In the last few days, Azimio has hoisted billboards with opinion poll results from all major pollsters to show that he is winning.
The journey has been long but I have not fought alone and felt lonely…I, Raila Amolo Odinga, I have seen the land of Canaan
During his final rally at Kasarani Stadium on Saturday, Raila’s speech sounded more like a victory declaration than a final campaign appeal.
He said the vote on Tuesday marks the end of decades of the struggle for freedom.
“I want to thank you for standing with me for the many years of struggle to liberate Kenya, for the battles we have fought together. The journey has been long but I have not fought alone and felt lonely…I, Raila Amolo Odinga, I have seen the land of Canaan,” he said.
Both Raila and Ruto have pulled huge crowds and posting pictures of the masses of humanity on social media.
A factor for Ruto, despite his declarations, is anxiety about the involvement of a faceless group of state operatives, the ‘deep state’ – that his side claims is at the centre of a plot to rig the election.
The vote will show whether Ruto still commands much of Mt Kenya and swathes of Rift Valley as widely claimed, and whether Raila has retained his bases of Nyanza, Coast, Nairobi, Western and Lower Eastern, which largely backed his 2017 bid.
The election will also determine whether Mt Kenya is the key to the presidency, a factor which saw the two front runners choose running mates from the region.
Dr Charles Nyambuga, a commentator from Maseno University, said Raila would compensate for whatever he has lost in his bases if he gets the Mt Kenya vote as projected.
Ruto was hanging on 90 per cent Rift Valley, 90 per cent Mt Kenya but that is not the case. I would say that this election is Raila’s to lose
“Mt Kenya remains the region to determine who gets the presidency. If Raila can get the figures we saw in the opinion polls from Mt Kenya, then he has the presidency,” he said.
“If he can get the 35 per cent, it is critical for him in Mt Kenya because it would pay off largely the votes that have shifted in Western, and Coast,” he said,
His argument is that Coast doesn’t have a huge number of voters and that with Nyanza voting as one bloc, “the election is Raila’s to lose.
“The 35 per cent in Central is huge in numbers, so that will definitely fill and overload the Raila kitty,” Nyambuga said.
"Ruto was hanging on 90 per cent Rift Valley, 90 per cent Mt Kenya but that is not the case. I would say that this election is Raila’s to lose."
The vote is considered a test of whether Martha Karua turned the tide against Ruto in Mt Kenya, and if the choice of Rigathi Gachagua was a poisoned chalice for UDA there.
Uhuru has not delivered Mt Kenya. Karua has. What is viewed as Mt Kenya’s support for Ruto is hatred for Uhuru. They also won’t also vote for a government led by Ruto, Gachagua
Prof Gitile Naituli, a former NCIC commissioner, said compared with Uhuru, Karua stands to bring more votes from Mt Kenya to the Azimio fold.
“Uhuru has not delivered Mt Kenya. Karua has delivered the region. What is viewed as Mt Kenya’s support for Ruto is hatred for Uhuru. They won’t also vote for a government led by Ruto and Gachagua. That will be dangerous, you cannot even imagine it,” he said.
He further said “a significant majority of Kenyans understand Raila’s promises.
“They have been simpler, measurable. What you cannot measure, you cannot do. Pledges like free university education, Sh6,000 for vulnerable families and health insurance are measurable and hence can be done.
“Ruto’s promises are phantom. They are what we can call true lies. He thinks all problems can only be solved using money.”
(Edited by V. Graham)
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