2002 Elections
Dramatic Change of Fortunes for Ruling Party
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- Published on Wednesday, 18 July 2007 03:39
In what is clearly a major reversal of roles, Narc penetrated virtually the entire country, except in Kisii, where Simeon Nyachae's Ford People held sway.
Save for North Eastern Province, Lamu and Tana River districts, where results were yet to be confirmed by afternoon yesterday, Kanu was virtually wiped out of Eastern, Western and Coast provinces, which were central to the party's victory in 1992 and 1997. Plans to lock out other parties from the expansive Rift Valley Province, with 49 seats, the highest number in any single province, did not work out as schemed.
The scenario, which has made Kanu a pale shadow of its former self, could be attributed to three key factors.
First and foremost, the unexpected Opposition unity scuttled the ruling party's winning strategy.
The controversial choice of the party's presidential candidate did not take into account an individual with enough grassroots network capable of maintaining the so-called Kanu "ethnic fabric". The absence of President Moi from the scene was quite devastating, given that he was single-handedly responsible for holding the party together in the past two elections, despite discontent among sections of Kanu zones over the distribution of the national cake.
Apart from underrating the Opposition's ability to stick together to the last minute, the Kanu strategy seemed to have been based on the wrong premise that the party was likely to hold on to its traditional cells of North Eastern, Rift Valley, Coast and sections of Eastern provinces, while going all out to fish in the Opposition waters for additional mileage.
The focus here was the 29-seat Central Province, where indications that the party was likely to capture at least five, courtesy of Mr Uhuru Kenyatta's candidacy, apparently made the party strategists to overlook the fact that it needed to maintain its firm grip on its strongholds of Rift Valley.
Notably, Kanu was this time round completely shut out of the cosmopolitan Trans Nzoia District, from where it has been using the burning issue of land ownership as a ruse to dominate the region.
Following the recent political re-alignments that saw the party lose some of its key candidates in sections of Rift Valley, Kanu lost seven crucial seats namely - Turkana Central, Cherangany, Rongai, Emng'wen, Narok North, Kajiado Central and Kilgoris - in a region where residents, who have all along been fanatically linked to President Moi, were this time relatively freer to experiment their autonomy.
Telling examples are Kilgoris and President Moi's Baringo Central constituencies, which voted favourably for Mr Kibaki.
The Narc leader garnered 18,000 votes in Kilgoris, compared to Mr Kenyatta's 14,000. In 1997, he got a measly 2,089 votes.
The same was the case in Baringo Central, where, despite trailing Mr Kenyatta by 3,458 votes to 32,170, it was a marked improvement on the 181 votes he got in the past election.
North Eastern Province, where Kanu scooped nine out of the total 11 seats in 1997, remained by and large intact.
However, the party suffered a blow in Western Province, which it had planned to capture after the appointment of Mr Musalia Mudavadi to the number two slot on November 4. The VP was himself a victim.
Much of it had to do with the assumption that the 24-seat province has a reputation of dishing out seats to various parties, owing to the perceived irreconcilable differences among the 17-plus Luhya sub-tribes.
The seething anger in the region over President Moi's decision to hand over the Kanu presidential ticket to Mr Kenyatta at the expense of Mr Mudavadi saw Narc make major inroads in key Kanu areas such as Vihiga, Busia and Butere/Mumias district, which have always stuck with Kanu even as Bungoma and Kakamega voted differently.
Out of the 15 seats the party got in the last election, it could only manage Mt Elgon and Nambale, where even the victory of Mr Chris Okemo has been disputed.
But if Western was disappointing, the multi-ethnic 36-seat Eastern Province was doubly so. Besides Moyale, Isiolo and Marsabit districts, virtually the entire Kamba, Embu and Meru regions made a major shift in favour of the Opposition.
Apart from Mr Maoka Maore's narrow victory in Ntonyiri and Mr Justin Muturi's bare survival in Siakago, Kanu's fortunes were turned upside down.
In Ukambani, where voters in 1997 could afford to defy the wave sparked by presidential candidate Charity Ngilu to give Kanu eight out of the 15 seats, the story was bitter for the ruling party.
This time round, the trend was contrary to 1997, when Kanu managed a respectable 17 seats with a fair representation in all the ethnic groups in the region.
Consoling, though, is the fact that the party managed to hold on to its seats in the far-flung Lamu and Tana River districts of Coast Province, which the Opposition attributes mainly to insecurity and poor infrastructure.
However, the contrary was true in the Coast hinterland, where the party lost six key seats, including Matuga, Kinango, Bahari, Kaloleni, Ganze and Malindi.
The defeat of Kanu vice-chairman Katana Ngala in Ganze brought to the fore the persistent grousing of locals that Kanu has been relying on pliant leaders.
