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By WACHIRA MAINA
IN SUMMARY
- Now that county governments have both money and power, voters are less tractable and more assertive.
- In 2013, a number of high-level technocrats sought and won gubernatorial contests across the country.
Every five years, from about this time to the elections, politics in Kenya becomes strangely atavistic, relapsing into a Jurassic park of sorts, in part a theatre of the absurd and in part a fetid swamp of dangerous reptiles. It is no different this year.
The yet-to-be completed party primaries have served up the usual fare: a small cluster of good candidates; a pack of braggarts and fools with more money than sense; nasty criminal-types seeking office to buy immunity as well as the usual lot of warmongers and ethnic haters.
It is easy to miss that along with this ‘normal’ cacophony, some historic shifts have also occurred.
PARTY-HOPPING
The most immediate change is that the High Court has put an end to the Kenyan politician’s favourite sport: party-hopping.
Early this week, the High Court threw out a constitutional challenge to an election amendment made last year, which barred failed nominees from crossing parties to seek nomination from other parties.
There is a case to be made that this law is not principled and that it attacks a foundational value, political choice.
However, what it means is that those who lose party nominations can now only run as independents.
GOVERNORS EJECTED
Though that is viable, it is expensive. Given the regional and ethnic character of party support in Kenya, independents won’t have sheen and magic that party endorsement confers.
They also won’t have access to any of the funds that parties raise or get from the treasury.
Though the legal change is significant, the political changes, three in total, are deeper still.
One is the sudden undoing of the traditional dynastic leaders, Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga especially.
Both have clearly lost their grip on local politics.
Two, surprisingly, perhaps, the technocratic governors we once thought could lead the professionalisation of counties have been rejected by voters.
POLITICAL DYNASTIES
Three, the under-classes have revolted against the middle classes and, it now seems, the global rejection of elite politics has reached our shores. Let’s flesh out these points.
The eclipse of the dynastic elites- the Kenyattas, the Odingas and the Mudavadis - has been sometime in the making.
Even so, the loss of power by both Mr Kenyatta’s and Mr Odinga’s allies across the board has been significant and ground shifting.
In Kiambu, in the Rift and in Eastern, Mr Kenyatta’s allies have been walloped.
Most dramatically, in his home turf, Ms Anna Nyokabi, a relative and an ally, has lost the nomination for the Woman Representative position.
NEWCOMERS
In Gatundu South, the sitting MP, Mr Moses Kuria, grumbled that Mr Kenyatta’s sibling was trying to rig him out. It did not work.
Elsewhere, MPs and leaders associated with Mr Kenyatta – including allies of his deputy William Ruto have been booted out.
Part of the explanation is that newcomers have succeeded because the President’s power no longer carries the cachet it once did.
Previously, presidents could reward MPs with Cabinet positions and thank local electorates with development goodies. No more.
Mr Raila Odinga has fared no better in his own backyard.
His relatives and friends have been roundly rejected.
His long-term ally and cousin, Mr Jakoyo Midiwo, has lost the nomination for Gem Constituency and Mr Nicholas Gumbo, a long-term ally and MP for Rarieda, has lost the Siaya governor’s nomination.
DEVOLUTION
Mr Odinga’s elder brother Mr Oburu Oginga was said to have first lost but was subsequently announced victor after a recount, a new source of resentment in ODM.
This won’t be comfortable for Raila, especially not Gumbo’s loss in the Siaya governor’s race.
Siaya is the Odinga family’s home county.
The fact that its politics has become so intractable suggests that the family does not hold the sway it once did on local politics.
What explains the weakening hold of the dynasties? Devolution.
By fragmenting and distributing to the counties the State power that the dynasties once used to control at the national level, devolution has made all politics more radically local than the Nairobi elite has so far recognised.
HOME TURF
In many ways, this shift will hurt Mr Odinga more than Mr Kenyatta.
Mr Odinga unambiguously leads the Luos in a way that Mr Kenyatta does not lead the Kikuyus.
Raila’s perch atop Luo politics has allowed him to take more liberties with the choice of local leaders than Mr Kenyatta ever could.
Part of the reason is that as their unquestionable leader, Mr Odinga could – and usually did - make the point that he was their best choice to stake a claim on State power and therefore State resources.
That gave him some licence, often allowing him to ignore popular leaders and impose his allies on the electorate.
KIKUYU VOTE
Now that county governments have both money and power, voters are less tractable and more assertive.
Counties can stake a claim on State resources even without Mr Odinga as President.
It seems inevitable, then, this election marks the end of the Odinga magic: It is unlikely that in devolved circumstances, any other Luo leader will ever have the same power as the Odinga family.
Mr Kenyatta, in contrast, follows rather than leads the Kikuyu.
He would not be able to shift the Kikuyu vote to another candidate, no matter what his sycophants say.
In fact, the only Kikuyu leader that ever could was Kenneth Matiba in 1992.
KENYATTA'S INFLUENCE
If, for example, Mr Uhuru had tried to honour his flopped pre-election bargain with Musalia Mudavadi in 2013, he could not have persuaded the Kikuyu to vote for Musalia, which is probably why he re-entered the presidential race blaming dark forces for his ‘ethnic waywardness’.
Thinking prospectively, it is obvious that come 2022, Mr Kenyatta won’t be able to transfer the Kikuyu vote to William Ruto, all the noisy deal-making in Jubilee notwithstanding.
For this reason, the Kenyatta family influence will also wane rather than grow even if Uhuru wins in August.
Connected to this erosion of the princely power of the Odingas and the Kenyattas, is the rout of the technocrats in these nominations, first pointed out to me by Prof Karuti Kanyinga.
MWADEGHU WINS
In 2013, a number of high-level technocrats sought and won gubernatorial contests across the country.
Most Kenyans thought this presaged a professionalisation of county management, an eclipse, perhaps, of the era of greedy, semi-literate politicians.
After five years, high-level technocrats have been booted out.
In Taveta, John Mruttu, former managing director of Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd, an engineering and business administration graduate from the University of Nairobi has lost to new-comer Mr Thomas Mwadeghu.
In Kirinyaga, the incumbent Joseph Ndathi, former Principal Immigration Officer who was nearly undone by the sordid saga of the Armenian brothers, Artur Margaryan and Artur Sargayan, has lost to Anne Waiguru, who is herself still under a cloud over the losses at the National Youth Service, NYS.
GUBERNATORIAL LOSERS
In Nakuru, Mr Kinuthia Mbugua, former deputy Provincial Commissioner, Commandant of the Administration Police and ally of Mr Kenyatta, has lost to Mr Lee Kinyanjui Moi, a literature and business administration graduate from Kenyatta University.
In Nandi, Dr Cleophas Kiprop Lagat, a former teacher, administrator and scholar has lost to lawyer and Senator Stephen Sang.
In Kisumu County, Jack Ranguma, a former commissioner of domestic taxes at the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), has lost to Prof Anyang Nyong’o even though he might yet challenge the result given the fiasco in which the Returning Officer announced Prof Nyong’o victorious even as his deputy announced Mr Ranguma the winner.
In Baringo, Mr Benjamin Chesire Cheboi, former Academic Registrar at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and chief executive of the Higher Education Loans Board, has lost to Stanley Kiptis, a former county secretary of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut).
POPULISM
Mr Ndathi and Mr Cheboi lost through comprehensive landslides for their opponents.
The winners should see a warning in these results.
What they show is that technocratic skills are important but these should be seen as necessary rather sufficient.
The job of the governor is to lead, not necessarily to manage.
Management itself can be delegated to members of the County Executive Committee, CEC.
It also looks like the global wave of populism is here with us too.
ANGRY VOTERS
Mr Mike Mbuvi Sonko may not have swept the board with the landslide that most people predicted but his nomination as Jubilee candidate for governor of Nairobi and that of Mr Ferdinand Waititu for the Kiambu seat held by Mr William Kabogo shows that the subalterns are revolting against the dominance of the middle classes as they have done in Europe and America.
If a populist revolt is what these two victories show, it will be clearer in the General Election itself, where we might see angry voters punish many more incumbents for their greed and venality, even if they do so merely in order to elect the next lot of avaricious crooks.
But the nominations also conceal a darker reality: The toppling of incumbents, 90 days before an election gives the losers a full quarter during which they will manage the assets and finances of counties in which they don’t have a real, long-term stake.
CHANGING TIMES
Very little thinking has been invested in transition management.
The risk is that losing but corrupt governors, their CECs and MCAs have a real incentive to cobble alliances of greed to clean out the county coffers before they hand over to winners in August.
In short, these nominations show that Kenya has changed.
But as that last point makes clear, it is not all for the good. Therein lies a real problem.
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