UHURU KENYATTA AND RAILA ODINGA BATTLE FOR NUMBERS
Nasa presidential nominee Raila Odinga at Safaricom Indoor Arena on May 5, 2017.
IN SUMMARY
There are only two weeks to go before the presidential candidates present their nomination papers to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
However, both the Jubilee Party and Nasa insiders are spending sleepless nights weighing up possibilities with the aim of clinching the presidency in the first round.
The battle for the magical number 50 per cent plus one has started in earnest between President Uhuru Kenyatta of the Jubilee Party and Mr Raila Odinga of the National Super Alliance (Nasa).
There are only two weeks to go before the presidential candidates present their nomination papers to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). However, both the Jubilee Party and Nasa insiders are spending sleepless nights crunching numbers, weighing up possibilities and working on possible snatch zones, all geared towards one goal: clinching the presidency in the first round.
Although 18 candidates have shown interest to vie for President, an analysis of the 2013 voter numbers and the voters’ register as it was in February indicates that the August 8 race has two front runners – President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga.
In 2013, Mr Kenyatta got 6,173,433 votes against Mr Odinga’s 5,340,546. Mr Musalia Mudavadi, who has now joined forces with Mr Odinga, got 483,981 to finish third.
With a near-consensus that the strongholds of both Jubilee and Nasa are intact, the battle for the magical 50 per cent plus one vote has now shifted to swing zones.
Among the regions considered to hold the key to who will become President in August are Narok, Kisii, parts of the Coast and North Eastern Kenya.
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While endorsing Mr Odinga to become the Nasa candidate last week, members of his party, ODM, were seen carrying placards reading “10 million strong”, a signal that the party was expecting Mr Odinga to garner over 10 million votes, out of an estimated 19.5 million. Jubilee leaders like Deputy President William Ruto and Majority Leader Aden Duale on the other hand, have been speaking about “70 per cent plus one”, meaning that they expect their candidate to get about 12 million votes – two million more than the Opposition.
Mr Raphael Tuju, the Jubilee Party Secretary-General doubted that the Opposition can marshal 10 million votes.
“For Nasa to say they have 10 million is just pure arrogance and the typical communist propaganda. All wishful thinking really. We have made inroads in Ukambani, Kisii, Coast and Western.”
Incidentally, Mr Odinga will on Sunday lead his troops to Afraha Stadium in Nakuru, where the Jubilee Coalition was born in 2012 after TNA and URP agreed to form a coalition ahead of the 2013 election. Sunday’s rally will be coming just a day after Jubilee handed nomination certificates to its candidates in that county.
Nasa counts Nakuru among swing counties.
VOTER SUPPORT
As the clock ticks towards August 8, the ping-pong over numbers has heightened amid leaked information from both sides over projected voter support bases across the 47 counties. The psychological war over who has the advantage over the other has reached a crescendo even before KPMG – the company hired to audit and clean up the voter register – concludes its task.
On February 21, when electoral commission chairman Wafula Chebukati released the official registration figures, the numbers suggested a statistical dead heat in the Jubilee-Nasa presidential contest.
The ODM Director of Elections, Mr Junet Muhamed, told the Nation that Nasa has worked out a projected figure of 10 million votes in favour of the Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka ticket.
Asked about the formula applied to arrive at the figure, the Suna East MP said: “Simple. This country is politically divided into two and this time it is in favour of Raila or Uhuru. So we have arrived on this baseline figures in accordance with our support bases.”
However, the Vice Chairman of Jubilee, Mr David Murathe, was more cautious
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