UDA big guns know things are getting complicated. Raila and Martha were in Nyanza for five days and the UDA twittstars were all over the map saying he is finished if he has to campaign in Nyanza. They forgot those folks there are Kenyans too and they vote and want to know what Azimio will deliver to Kenyans and to them.
Then the Azimio team comes to Nyeri and now it is a different story. First, they say there is nobody meeting Raila and Martha in Nyeri. That is after they take their 8 a.m videos of the meeting places.
After that, the actual meetings happen and Kenyans from Nyeri are with Raila, Martha, and a whole lot of Kenyan politicians from the region including my favourite politician who works nonstop, Peter Kenneth.
All of a sudden the UDA story changes. Now their little D.O Molo boy, Rigathi Gachagua goes on a rant about chiefs sending crowds to Azimio events in Nyeri. This chap still lives in 1992 when he was doing Moi stuff in Molo.
In a statement, Gachagua alleged that the chiefs were also forced to form part of the crowd that had come to meet the Azimio Coalition leaders and cheer them. From UDA it seems these are our new chiefs? And they are in uniform. How grand.
The chiefs and their assistants were ordered to dress in full uniform and mobilize wananchi to welcome the Azimio presidential candidate in Karatina,” he claimed in a statement on Facebook.
“When wananchi declined to welcome the Azimio team, the deputy county commissioner ordered the chiefs and their assistants while dressed in their official regalia to form part of the crowd so as to cheer and clap for the Azimio presidential candidate.”
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Gachagua condemned the alleged use of chiefs and their assistants for political reasons.
This guy doesn’t get it. The days when he as D.O would order chiefs and assistant chiefs to mobilize political rallies and events are gone. Nobody even knows who the chiefs are anymore. But this is Ruto and his Gachagua in their 1992 mode. They have no clue we are in 2022 and it is a brand new world. They will find that out soon enough.
One of the most critical aspects of the 2022 General elections is going to be about voter turnout. That is why the pollsters trying to figure this out don’t make sense.
In 2017 Uhuru had a 92% voter turnout in the Mt. Kenya region and got more than 4 million votes out of that region and had a 1 million-plus win over Raila. William Ruto will need the same 92% voter turnout and win 90% of that. If the voter turnout in the Mt. Kenya region goes down to 70% of the registered voters, Ruto and UDA can win 100% of that and still lose.
As things stand now, Raila Odinga and Martha Karua are going to get a pretty good chunk of the Mt. Kenya vote. For every one vote they get, Ruto has to double it elsewhere to compensate.
Where will he get that double vote? Western? No. Coast? No. Ukambani? No. Nairobi? No. That is the math and it is stubborn. What next? That is their problem and it is bigger than they can comprehend at the moment. Good.
Adongo Ogony is a Human Rights Activist and a Writer who lives in Toronto, Canada
