Elections the world over are won or lost based on three factors: the demographics defining the voting blocs, the dominating narrative and the targeted numbers.
In other words, the potency of prophesy as to which candidate shall win will ever to be built on attention to the pattern of interest groups, the emerging compelling messaging and the critical number of voters that the conveyed storyline resonates with.
President William Ruto won his first term on a narrative that placed him on the side of the down trodden, voiceless Kenyans as opposed to the overfed, privileged class.
Had it been the epoch of the cold war where such a narrative scared the capitalist West, there would have been serious foreign attempts to undermine his steps towards the presidency. Be it as it may, his narrative resonated with a wide majority across the traditional voting blocs in Kenya.
The narrative was also spiced to align with the hopes of Mt. Kenya voters and on this the impeached Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua was rather blunt: the late Raila Odinga, a Luo, was to be blocked from the presidency by all means.
As Ruto took the mantle of leadership in the country, the Luo were renamed by his deputy and referred to ad infinitum as ‘non-shareholders’. The tag may have been meant for other distinct communities that voted for Raila.
In all nations political emotions and choices are driven by societal sensibilities that include race, colour, gender, kinship, economic tiers, caste, language, religion, socio-historical grudges, resources and definitely more.
In the US as in large swarths of industrialized west, there is a perennial problem of relations regarding skin colour.
The US still suffers from the inability to deal with the black question that led to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X and lifelong struggles of activist Ashley Farmer, poet Maya Angelou to the struggles of Muhammad Ali.
The struggle that even led to assassinations, was always a struggle towards the change of narrative from that of exclusion that of inclusivity. The black question has always impacted on the voting patterns in American elections. Every presidential candidate in American elections has won or lost depending on how they have succeeded or failed in attempts at winning messaging regarding the myriad questions that a vast multi-issue country like America must grapple with.
The Nigerian experience is a case study of a country of varicoloured political nuances. There is the issue of inter-religious animosities, lingo-cultural stances between the north and the east and the ever so threatening fact of a politicized military. It is in this scenario that Lt. Col. Aguiyi Ironsi rose to power in a chaotic coup and became head of state on 16th January, 1966.
When northerners awoke to the fact an Igbo had taken over powers of state, the planning for a countercoup took root immediately. In short six months, precisely in July northerners staged their coup de ’tat and killed Aguiyi Ironsi on 29th July, 1966.
The killing of an Igbo president only fuelled further the inter-ethnic bad blood. Only one year later the Igbo declared Biafra independent under president Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, an army officer.
This escalated into the civil war in which 3 million Nigerians lost their lives. Chinua Achebe, the celebrated Nigerian novelist, an Igbo, later wrote, “I believed and loved Nigeria, I do no longer”. To date the search for a solution to the ethno-religious and mistrust is a mega search for the political class in the Nigeria.
On the Kenyan scene, as stated above, Ruto’s spirited messaging about onboarding the hitherto voiceless poor was catchy and persuasive enough to gain him the first term. The big question is, does Ruto possess another winning piece of communication to the Kenyan multifaced voters? Is it a narrative that is convincing enough, persuasive enough to attract a substantial and compounded majority? Lastly, are there competing pronouncements?
Through a reading and a keen ear to Ruto’s public addresses, a narrative emerges. During his first term, a perception was forming that the Ruto regime was set to reward a clique of shareholders who were only those who voted for the Kenya Kwanza coalition.
None other than the President’s former Deputy invested heavily on this narrative. The President is presenting an image, in utterance, in deed and in body language, of a candidate that wants to distance his manifesto from such baggage. It is a variance of the narration that hoisted him to the presidency which was to serve all disadvantaged Kenyans regardless of kinship or creed.
Ruto’s engagement with the electorate throughout the country is that of a President on a mission to address the needs of all Kenyans as a people of indivisibly equal shareholding on the nation’s resources and opportunities. This would not only be a powerful narrative but an unbeatable one as well.
Here is why. Since the 19th century the African and pre-Columbian American peoples have been described as tribes from the Latin word tribus which were the territorial divisions of Rome before being used to mean the descendants of the 12 sons of Jacob or Israel.
