An interesting observation in Kenyan electoral democracy is that since 2002, no party has singularly been able to form government. Instead, we have had coalition governments since Mwai Kibaki came to power under NARC.
This lack of strong political party culture has played a huge contribution to the current political problems the country is facing.
In 2002, the opposition joined hands to form a coalition, to overcome the challenge they faced in 1992 and 1997 polls, to remove KANU from power.
The National Rainbow Coalition brought together the disgruntled KANU senior politicians, who disagreed with President Daniel Moi's selection of Uhuru Kenyatta, then a political greenhorn, and the opposition parties.
Without having a common political ideology, the opposition, joined by disgruntled former Kanu luminaries, won the election in a landslide, ending the Independence party's near 40-year rule.
That also seems to have put an end to a strong political party system. KANU has never been the same again, only managing a few elected leaders here and there.
A few years later, finding itself in unfamiliar opposition territory, KANU backed the re-election of President Kibaki, a move that was divisive, with then secretary general William Ruto, current President, opposing the move, saying it was Uhuru's decision with a few others.
Ruto told VOA News, "At the meeting of the National Delegate Conference, it was resolved that the members of KANU were going to join forces with members other political parties in ODM. The decisions by the chairman and a few people to support Hon Mwai Kibaki are individual decisions.
They are not the decisions of the party, and until the party calls another National Delegate Conference to decide otherwise, the position of the party remains that the membership, which is actually the majority, about 80 per cent of the membership of KANU are currently in ODM”.
Uhuru said at the time that he was supporting Kibaki's re-election so that KANU members would get jobs in the next government, which Ruto termed as a tribal move.
“I think that is a very narrow and very short-sighted way of looking at things because you don’t form a political party for the sake of getting ministerial positions in another government. You run a political party because you have an agenda, you have a programme for the country, and you want to run for the high office to create a government and implement your manifesto and your agenda,” Ruto said at the time.
Independence years
The unholy relationship between the ruling party and the opposition can be traced to a year after Independence in 1964, when the Kenya African Democratic Union joined KANU, leading to a de facto, if not de jure, one-party state under KANU.
The formation of KADU in 1960, with the undeclared support of the Europeans, was to challenge KANU. Its aim was to defend the interests of tribes under the Kamatusa banner, an acronym for Kalenjin, Maasai, Turkana and Samburu, as well as the European settler community, against the dominance of the larger Luo and Agikuyu tribes that comprised the majority of KANU's membership
Then came the 1997 Kanu-NDP merger, or the Moi-Raila cooperation deal, in which Raila Odinga became so-called New Kanu secretary general, and joined Moi's Cabinet, hoping he would get his endorsement in the 2002 general election.
These events have negatively affected Kenya's political party culture, where, as Moi warned, they have become tribal political power shopping bags without any ideology, beliefs or principles.
Since 2002, there has also not been a coalition going to the next election in the same name, form and shape it was five years prior. However, the faces are the same, only that they change camps based on the tribal alignments to strike what Mutahi Ngunyi termed as "Tyranny of Numbers".
Creating a political culture
So, does Kenya really have a political culture, or these 'alignments' have become our political culture? Political culture is essential to an understanding of government and politics in its many varieties.
And the political culture addressed here is the elite political culture than the civic one in that even where mass attitudes to politics are well developed, it is still the views of the elite that exert the most direct effect on political decisions as seen in Kenya's political system.
In a liberal democracy, parties offer contrasting and competing values and policies, in Kenya's case on paper, but underlying the contrasts, we often find tacit agreements, often in Kenya through undisclosed MoUs, and shared interests, creating an elite culture that is inconsiderate to the constituents but selfish interests.
After the 2002 elections, NARC split ahead of the 2005 referendum largely due to failure to honour the 2002 MoU that would have handed Raila a Prime Minister post. This split led to the formation of the Orange Democratic Movement, now Raila's party, after the referendum.
To survive re-election, President Kibaki's wing of NARC, with the backing of KANU, their rivals in 2002, formed PNU, while the Raila splinter group went into that election as ODM.
Following the 2007-08 electoral violence, a political settlement was reached, bringing the ODM leadership into government by sharing the blotted Cabinet almost by half, with Raila as premier. It was a grand coalition government, with Kalonzo Musyoka getting on board as Vice President through the PNU and ODM-K cooperation deal to shore up numbers in Parliament against the ODM Majority. The three leading candidates in that election were all in government.
In the first election under the new Constitution in 2013, Uhuru dumped Kanu to form the National Alliance Party, and reconnected with Ruto who had formed United Republican Party to form the Jubilee coalition. The coalition largely brought together the two most populous tribes/ regions (the Kikuyus from Central Kenya and Kalenjins from the Rift Valley) in the Tyranny of Numbers.
Tyranny of numbers
Tyranny of Numbers, drawn from tribal voting patterns, has largely influenced Kenya's politics, with coalition making centred on regions and tribes.
The duo faced it out with the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) led by Raila and Kalonzo as running mate.
Uhuru and Ruto won the election, once again contested. The petition was dismissed and the duo formed the government.
Again, the political arrangements changed in 2017, with the Jubilee coalition swallowing most of its coalition partners into the Jubilee Party and formed a coalition with other small parties, while CORD rebranded into the National Super Alliance, bringing on board more parties into its ranks.
Jubilee still won the election, but the presidential election was nullified by the Supreme Court, which ordered for a repeat. The Opposition, NASA, called for protests against the electoral commission, arguing it didn't have capacity to oversee another election following the Supreme Court ruling.
The protests ceased after the Handshake political deal, birthing a constitutional change push dubbed "the Building Bridges Initiative".
One of the key changes in the Executive architecture would have been an expanded Executive with a Prime Minister and two deputies, as well as anchoring the Office of Leader of Opposition in the law for "inclusivity". That attempt failed at the courts, disrupting the succession plot.
The coalition politics once again played out in 2022 election, with the ruling Jubilee Party forming a coalition with ODM, Wiper and other parties to form Azimio against then Deputy President Ruto's splinter group from Jubilee - United Democratic Party - and other parties such as ANC and Ford Kenya, (initially in NASA), among others to form Kenya Kwanza.
With Ruto as President, he maintains there will be no handshake, Nusu Mkate or power sharing deal. On the other hand, he has poached some Jubilee officials, who have deserted the man they heavily campaigned for, a man they de-campaigned as corrupt and unfit to rule.
What we are dealing with is a deep-rooted problem, where political players and faceless operatives, have, since independence, had a way of joining government in one way or another, even after losing elections. They feel entitled.
Then dialogue, talks and negotiations are invoked.
What then is the purpose of elections? What do Kenyan political parties and coalitions stand for other than seeking power or in their pursuit for power?