Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga’s perceived strongholds have the largest bloc of 9.3 million potential new voters who could influence the outcome of the 2022 presidential election.
Some 5.3 million youths will have attained voting age by 2022 and an additional four million people eligible to vote in 2017 were not registered as voters, according to an analysis of official data by the Nation.
Of the 9.3 million potential new voters, Nyanza, Western and Coast regions, as well as Turkana, which have overwhelmingly voted for Mr Odinga in the last three presidential elections, collectively account for over three million — one third.
As President Uhuru Kenyatta’s succession heats up, it signals voter turnout in 2022 could reach the highest levels, with the surge of new largely young voters who could tip the contest for what is now being billed as pitting a coalition backed by the President and Mr Odinga against Deputy President William Ruto.
It is projected that the voters’ register could grow to 29 million in 2022 on the back of a legion of new young voters, a huge increase from 19.6 million listed in 2017.
With the high stakes in the race for the fifth president, which has split the ruling party with a faction allied to the President teaming up with the opposition to check the influence of the DP’s camp, the scramble for the numbers will intensify.
Turnout will decide the ultimate winner as the past two elections have shown; in 2013, Mr Kenyatta won by the narrowest of margins, 50.07 per cent, to avoid a run-off.
Mr Kenyatta and Dr Ruto polled 6,173,433 votes against Mr Odinga and Mr Kalonzo Musyoka’s 5,340,546.
In the August 2017 vote that was nullified by the Supreme Court, the electoral commission had declared President Kenyatta the winner by a margin of 1.4 million votes, with 54.2 per cent of the votes to Mr Odinga’s 44.7 per cent. Mr Odinga boycotted the subsequent repeat election which President Kenyatta easily won.
An analysis of Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) 2019 population census data and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s 2017 voters’ register gives a glimpse into the new numbers that will be at play in the next elections.
Dead voters by the time will also affect the final tally and the assumption also that the call for all eligible voters to register and to get them out to vote on polling day is a success.
In 2019, those in the age bracket 15-19 were 5, 285, 706 and they will be eligible to vote in 2022. Additionally, some 3, 966, 057 who are eligible to vote are not reflected in the 2017 voters’ roll for various reasons, perhaps lack of an identity card, failure to list, among others.
Based on the new numbers, by 2022, Mt Kenya could have 5.9 million voters, Rift Valley 2.9 million — and if Nakuru’s 1.3 million votes are factored in — it totals 10.1 million for the regions that have been instrumental in securing Jubilee’s victory in the last two elections.
For now, there’s no telling how the fallout between the President and his deputy will affect this vote-rich bloc that gave rise to the tyranny of numbers.
But it’s central to Dr Ruto’s presidential ambition and, without President Kenyatta’s endorsement, it’s expected he will have to work harder to keep it intact.
Dr Ruto has accused a clique of officials of running Jubilee Party like it was a private entity, daring party vice-chairman David Murathe to join ODM as he is already promoting Mr Odinga’s candidature.
“The party has been hijacked by busybodies, conmen and brokers… like Murathe and company, people who have no clue on our philosophy, they were nowhere, we appointed them to those positions, their word has now become the party position,” Dr Ruto said in a recent interview with a local television station.
But Murathe told off the DP, saying they had uncovered how he had schemed to ensure he was installed as the ruling party’s presidential candidate.
“The DP had been positioning his people strategically. They were going to organise some sham grassroots election the way they rigged the party nominations, install their own people all the way from constituency to county levels so that once national party organs are convened, they endorse him as the candidate. We had to rescue the party from such machination,” Mr Murathe told the Nation last week.
Nyanza, Western and Coast could collectively have 9.1 million voters by 2022. Again, the fallout in the National Super Alliance (Nasa) and depending on candidates who would be on the ballot — for example, whether Mr Musalia Mudavadi will be in the race, and the perceived inroads the DP has made in these opposition zones — will influence how this vote will be split.
The three Ukambani counties of Machakos, Makueni and Kitui, with an estimated 775,612 potential new voters, and a projected combined 2.3 million voters in 2022, could also influence the outcome of the contest.
This, again, depends on the presidential candidates on the ballot for if Kalonzo or Machakos governor Alfred Mutua will run, then the region would not be a battleground given the country’s ethnic voting patterns.
The Northern Kenya counties of Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Marsabit and Isiolo which collectively have an estimated 742,473 potential new voters who could increase their combined tally to 1.4 million could also be a battle ground region likely to swing the contest.
From the analysis, Nairobi (3,060,436), Kiambu (1,670,281), Nakuru (1,346,751), Kakamega (1,080,827) and Meru (1,005,409) are projected to have the highest number of voters in 2022.
