Raila is beating the drums of war. Let me explain. For starters, he has told us that the government will rig this election. And that IEBC is the government and the government is IEBC. But this does not worry me.
What worries me are two pointers to the ‘coming war’. One, Raila has told us that if he loses, he will not go to court. He will go direct to the court of public opinion. And the people will decide whether the election was stolen or not.
If they decide that the election was stolen (which they will do anyway) then Raila will be declared the ‘People’s President’. Following this declaration, they will use the First Article of the constitution that states “…all sovereign power rests with the people”.
On the basis of this Article, they will then swear him in. And should this happen, it will be a declaration of war. Two, Raila has insisted on having a parallel tallying system. And the question I ask on this is the following: Will he use this system to declare Uhuru Kenyatta the winner? The answer is zero! He has put up this system to declare himself the winner, whether he wins or not.
The point here is simple: Raila is not interested in the election. He has the results already “cooked” in his tallying centre. And he can announce them tomorrow if he wants to. To him, he won the election the day he was declared the National Super Alliance (Nasa) candidate.
August 8 is just an annoying event. But there is one more thing. He has already told us how many votes he will garner. He calls this the “10 Million Strong Campaign”. His parallel tallying centre has therefore been programmed to ‘cook’ a figure close to 10 million votes. And since he has conditioned our minds to believe his political ‘lies’, we will entertain this ‘cooked’ figure.
What the country has not done, though, is to interrogate Raila’s “Tyranny of Lies”. Let me begin with the “10 Million Strong” Lie. I must admit that it is clever. And the idea is to ‘normalise’ the rigging lie, the lie about the tallying centre and the lie about the “People’s President”. If this fake president is elected by 10 million people, he will be presumed legitimate!
The “Tyranny of Lies” will have won the election. But to break down the “10 Million” lie, I took time off to study five elections. I examined the elections from 1992 to 2013. And I have the following submissions to make.
One, Kenyans vote along ethnic lines. There is no point cheating ourselves. In the 2013 election, 95 per cent of the Luo Nation voted for Raila; and 91 per cent of Gema voted for Uhuru. This is a statistical fact.
Two, it is difficult to explain the Luhya Nation using science. Their voting patterns are not predictable. As such, they are not ‘bankable’ until you lock them in the ‘bank’. Take 2002 for instance, because the Luo Nation did not have a stake in the Kibaki coalition, their turnout dropped to a record low of 53 per cent.
However, the turnout drop for the Luhya Nation was worse. Although they had Kijana Wamalwa as Mzee Kibaki’s running mate, they did not care. Their turnout dropped from 68.2 per cent to 39 per cent in the 2002 election.
If they did this at a time when their candidate was running mate, how will they behave if their stake in Nasa is zero? We will discuss this scientific puzzle of the Luhya Nation another day!
Now I must return to the “10 Million” lie of Nasa. If you take the last five elections as case studies, we must conclude that the average voter turnout will be 69 per cent or more. The IEBC register shows that there are 5.58 million Gema votes; and 2.32 million Kalenjin votes. This gives Jubilee a total of 7.9 million votes, if ethnic voting is a fact.
The three communities of Nasa include 2.22 million Luo voters, 2.13 million Kamba voters and 2.56 million Luhya voters. This adds up to 6.9 million votes.
Put differently, Jubilee is starting this campaign with 7.9 million votes in the bag and Nasa’s bag has 6.9 million votes. And you can counter-check this with the IEBC register and the National Census for credibility of my figures.
If voter turnout is 69 per cent, generated as an average from the last five elections, these numbers are bound to change. Jubilee’s actual votes fall from 7.9 million to 5.96 million and those of Nasa fall from 6.9 million to 4.5 million. And this is because of an average voter turnout of 69 per cent generated from five elections. If this average is acceptable, therefore, and Nasa is starting its campaign at 4.5 million votes, how do they jump to “10 Million Strong”?
And how do they get there with voter apathy in Ukambani and Luhya country? To do so, there has to be two extremes. One, Raila has to convince all the Gema voters to follow him to Kibera. If he can do this, he will add 4.1 million votes to his 4.5 million votes.
This will only add up to 9.6 million votes. Two, Raila has to convince the entire country, including the entire William Ruto stronghold and bwana Ruto himself, to follow him to Kibera. This must be done in two months.
If he does it, he will add 4.9 million to his votes. This will give him 9.4 million votes. What is my point here? Raila’s base is worth 4.5 million votes only. This has potential to grow to 6 million votes.
But if it grows to 9 million, let alone 10 million, then his tallying station will have ‘cooked’ the figures. This will mean that the entire Gema nation voted for him or the entire country, including William Ruto, abandoned Gema and voted for Raila. And this is why Raila is a master of ‘Tyranny of Lies”. But now you must allow me to show a little kindness to Raila.
All he wants is to get into government as President or Prime Minister. And in my considered opinion, he will force his way in. I will not be surprised if we swear him in as Prime Minster in October. But I could also be wrong. Maybe Kalonzo Musyoka will betray him and become Prime Minister instead! This election is downright complex! Prof Mutahi Ngunyi is the Principal Fellow at The Consulting House and is associated with the Fort Hall School of Government, a college registered in Kenya
By Prof. Mutahi Ngunyi
