KENYANS go to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new president, county governors and members of the national and local legislatures after robust electioneering which focused on policies that the politicians hope will sway voters in their favour.
The biggest battle is being fought for a new President to replace Uhuru Kenyatta who is stepping down after two five-year terms, according to constitutional requirements.
Kenyatta’s deputy, William Ruto, and the perennial presidential contestant, Raila Odinga, are the two main contenders in the race to become president.
In normal circumstances, Kenyatta would have been expected to back his deputy who stuck with Kenyatta through thick and thin in the early days of his presidency.
Indeed, Kenyatta had agreed to support Ruto’s candidacy during this year’s presidential election.
But he threw in his lot with Odinga after Ruto failed to support the 2018 Building Bridges Initiative that saw Kenyatta and Odinga shake hands on the project that was supposed to lead ‘towards a united Kenya’.
However, BBI never got off the ground after the Kenyan courts ruled in 2021 that it was unconstitutional, thus stopping the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission from holding a referendum to incorporate the BBI into the Constitution.
Critics of BBI pointed out that it was really meant to satisfy the needs of the country’s political elite rather than ordinary Kenyans.
So, Ruto and his Kenya Kwanza Alliance have had to undertake his bid for the presidency without the support of Kenyatta.
Not surprisingly, the Ruto camp has been more critical of Kenyatta than Odinga during the marathon campaign.
Ruto has sold himself as a supporter of downtrodden young people who, according to him, spend most of their time ‘hustling’ to survive day-to-day.
He has blamed the ‘dynasties’ in the country for this state of affairs for young Kenyans and has promised to dismantle the stranglehold that these groups appear to have on Kenya.
For many Kenyans, the Kenyatta and Odinga families are seen as the linchpins of the dynasties that Ruto has been referring to.
Kenyatta and Odinga are scions of the country’s first President and first Vice President who Ruto said had a privileged life while he had to tough it out in his younger days.
Of course, there are also other families in Kenya that have made good over the years.
Today, Ruto himself is a far cry from that underprivileged young man; he has now become wealthy.
By introducing class-based rhetoric in Kenyan politics, how will the ‘hustler-dynasty’ divide be bridged and how easy will it be to upend the status quo?
If Ruto wants to replace the entrenched dynasties, who will take over?
Will members of the new dynasties come from the hustlers?
This is easier than done.
Odinga and his running mate, Martha Karua, in the Azimio coalition, on the other hand, have been dealing with bread-and-butter issues.
For instance, their promise to give KSh6,000 ($50.34) monthly to two million needy households across the country could be a vote-winner.
Using the national household average size of 3.9 people, 7.8 million people will benefit from this plan.
That is nearly 26 per cent of the population or one out of every four Kenyans.
In all, KSh12 billion will be spent monthly on this stimulus programme, translating to KSh144 billion annually, which is about four times the current expenditure on social assistance and 4.5 per cent of the projected total expenditure of the government in 2022/2023.
Azimio said the programme would be financed by making up to 25 per cent cuts in government ministries.
Odinga and Karua believe the programme will lay the foundation for a new transformational value chain that will also trigger massive economic activity and create thousands of local small-scale businesses and enterprises across the country.
There is also talk of funding Azimio’s social projects from stolen money recovered locally and internationally.
In 2020, the country’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission recovered public assets worth KSh16 billion.
In March this year, Jersey signed an agreement paving the way for the return to Kenya of about KSh582 million stolen from government coffers.
In May this year, Switzerland began the process of repatriating KSh233million to Kenya, which was stashed in the country as proceeds of corruption.
Additionally, $2 million (KSh132 million) is being held by the Swiss government.
On the campaign trail, Karua’s presence on the Azimio presidential ticket has gone down well among Kenyan women who feel that she will look after the interests of marginalised women and girls in the country.
Crucially, many Kenyan women believe that the no-nonsense Karua as Deputy President will be the first step to the country having its first female President.
The Azimio manifesto calls for ‘commitment to transforming Kenyan society and creating a nation founded on equity, shared prosperity, social justice and cohesion as well as improving the lives of Kenyans and creating a caring society’.
Thus, Odinga’s socio-economic campaign model has made a difference, as most opinion polls put him ahead of Ruto.
