By Dorcas Sarkozy
Well Inside Injury Time, the Undecided Voters ARE Breaking NASA’s Way.
And if this continues into August 8th, 2017, Raila Amolo Odinga will be Kenya’s 5th president and Steven Kalonzo Musyoka will be his deputy – period.
In today morning’s banner post, Maina Githuka made the astute observation that the “undecided” voters “can’t be said to be ‘undecided’…..when (they) already support one side.”
Mea culpa: The banner should have been clearer so to Bw. Maina – Well done my “fren”.
Elections have an ebb-and-flow to them as most students of the process will tell you. Obviously the major caveat in this truism of Psephology i.e. the study of elections, is the demonstrably corrupt political environment that is Kenya but that is the rule of thumb – that elections have a flow to them.
The last two weeks (and) heading towards August 8th have revealed two things: (a) that the die-hard voters long ago settled on their candidate and (b) that the undecided voters combined with the prevailing mood are both coalescing around NASA.
Consider the following:
– Uhuru Kenyatta has returned to his strident un-presidential self. Not only has the president returned to punching “down-weight” in his churlish tiff with Mombasa Gov. Hassan Joho; he excoriated the supposedly independent co-equal Judiciary branch of the government because of rulings unfavorable to the executive!
– The recent opinion polls, their history of unreliability notwithstanding, are moving in NASA’s direction while Jubilee’s numbers have stagnated at ~45%±2 since late May,
– The overall theme and tone of the daily news, aside from the occasional squabbles of sibling rivalry and partisan pieces by nasal-sounding figureheads, also appear to favor NASA,
– A melancholic brooding pall has befallen the hitherto upbeat “tuko pamoja” “mbele iko sawa” online crowd; some even wondering loudly “whether they will vote”,
– Unable to forcefully and factually defend the last four years, Jubilants are pulling a Republican alt-right staple by pining for “their country” and the “Kibaki years” even as they blame the “Moi error”, inclement weather and an aggressive opposition for their (Jubilee’s) substandard 1st term performance.
Obviously the proof will be in the “sukuma na ugali” i.e. in the pudding of the final results after the 8/8/17 date with the ballot. However, the 2017 General Elections have definitely swayed away from Jubilee towards NASA.
The challenge for NASA’s public relations (PR) wing AND its ground game, twenty days from August 8th, is to maintain pressure on the floundering incumbent, avoid unforced errors and “leave no stones unturned” looking for votes AND making sure that Election Day turnout shatters IEBC’s turnout model!
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