Something happens in Kenyan general election that you don’t see much of, or at all, in other parts of East Africa: big battles over party names.
On the weekend, Senator Edwin Sifuna, one of three presumed front runners according to opinion polls, was announced as leader of The Equitable Party (TEP), and that will be the platform on which he would stand as presidential candidate in the 2027 election. TEP is not a newly registered party. It was registered on March 25, 2022, so Sifuna took over an existing entity rather than creating one.
It is not a sexy name by any measure, but Sifuna clutched on to it after his political grouping failed to register the more vibrant Linda Mwananchi (Protect the Citizen), and ‘’vibes” better with his presumed youth base. Sifuna’s movement had made “Linda Mwananchi” a rallying cry for months before it applied to reserve it, only for it to run into political. A Daily Nation article described the camp as having dropped its guard on registration.
The short of it is someone called Charles Wanyonyi, not Sifuna’s team, made the first move to register the Linda Mwananchi Party of Kenya, but the Registrar of Political Parties rejected the name because it resembled the protected slogan “Linda Mkenya, Boresha Kenya” (Protect a Kenyan, Improve Kenya).
Sifuna’s allies later applied to reserve the name Linda Mwananchi Movement, but the Registrar rejected it, partly because another party already uses the acronym LINDA.
The Political Parties Disputes Tribunal (PPDT) overturned that decision and allowed Sifuna's team to reserve (not register) "The Mwananchi Party" while the dispute was pending.
Kenyan media and political commentators call this the ‘’briefcase party problem”, a phenomenon where individuals without even a single following or political structure reserve or register names of parties, so that when the big boys and girls move to register something with a similar name, they have to buy them out to take it over, or lease the name.
It can be bewildering for non-Kenyans reading about it from afar, so we will spare them the pain, but there is virtually no name politicians have come up with, which some bloke who carries five mobile phones and spends a lot of his time sitting at Jeevanjee Gardens hasn’t thought of, and beaten them to punch with it at the Registrar’s.
To call it a “briefcase party problem”, is to reveal only a wee bit of the story, for party names tells us that there exists a fairly sophisticated prediction market in Kenya. Most modern prediction markets are online trading platforms where participants buy and sell contracts based on the outcome of future events, such as elections, sports games, or economic indicators. The Kenyan one specialises in political nomenclature, and its understanding of the system of terms, titles, and labels the political uses and is likely to use is first class. The result is that for nearly 30 years, there has been a huge fight over party names at every election.
How does this prediction market make money? The more straightforward one is that deep-pocketed politicians buy the name off the chap who registered the party whose name they want. However, a leading or ruling party can also pay the owner of a party that rivals desire to refuse to sell it to them. In the past, there have been reports that claimed party name entrepreneurs ate from both sides; they took money not to sell the party, but betrayed their client and sold it anyway for a tidy sum.
First, they keep on global movements which inspire names. The most successful political party in Kenya of recent years was the Raila Odinga-led Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) inspired by the Orange Revolution, a series of mass protests and civil disobedience in Ukraine from late November 2004.
In Kenya, it originated during the 2005 constitutional referendum, as a coalition of politicians that successfully opposed the government's proposed constitution.
Shortly after the 2005 referendum, lawyer Mugambi Imanyara outflanked the eventual ODM leaders, quietly registered the name "Orange Democratic Movement" under his own name, foreseeing its future political value. Today, if one went to registered something with “Gen Z”, after the captivating youth protest movements that started in Kenya in 2024, they would probably find versions of it reserved, especially given that the same name was carried to the protests that ousted President Andry Rajoelina in Madagascar (Jenz Madagascar), and forced the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in Nepal where it manifested as Aragalaya (meaning "The Struggle"). You can expect that someone in the Kenyan political prediction market has Struggle locked down.
Anything with “Democracy”, “United People’s”, “Redemption”, “Republican”, popular political struggles (like purple), names with “Renaissance” popularised by African leaders like South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki are probably gone.
They also understand that politicians, even as they play tribal politics, will keep to a narrow spectrum, and avoid ethnic names like “The Kamba Revolutionary Party”, and religious ones like “The Christian People’s Movement”, or “Kenya Islamic Front” (KIF). And, of course, parties whose names would result in unfortunate abbreviations, for example, “Kenya Integrity Liberation League” (KILL). You can imagine if KILL supporters clashed with KIF, and one of the latter died of their injuries, the headline feast: “Islamic Front campaigner dies after attacks by KILL”.
In the spaces left for the politicians to find names, Kenyan political prediction market players have them almost completely figured out.
The author is a writer, journalist and curator of the Wall of Great Africans. X: @cobbo3
