Kenya’s presidential election looks too close to call

The unpopularity of Kenya’s outgoing president with his own tribe means that the election of his successor on August 9th is too close to call. Uhuru Kenyatta holds the most famous surname of the country’s largest and most politically dominant tribe, the Kikuyu. His father, Jomo, was among Africa’s best-known anti-colonial heroes before becoming Kenya’s first president in 1964. Mr Kenyatta serves as its fourth. The main street in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, bears the Kenyatta name. So does its international airport, and one of its two top universities.

Given this reverence, one might assume that Mr Kenyatta would have some sway over the vote of his kinsmen. Having served two terms, the maximum allowed by the constitution, he has vigorously endorsed Raila Odinga, a seasoned opposition campaigner whom he beat in Kenya’s two previous elections, both of which were fraught. Mr Odinga’s chief rival for the top job is William Ruto, the current deputy president, who ran together with Mr Kenyatta last time round. But the outgoing president fell out with him a few years ago and now vilifies him.

Were Kikuyus to heed Mr Kenyatta’s call Mr Odinga, the kingpin of the Luo people from the shores of Lake Victoria, would surely be a shoo-in. In the three previous elections he finished as runner-up; each time, in his own view, rigged out of winning. Since the Kikuyus and their ethnic allies around Mount Kenya make up more than one-fifth of the country’s population of 54m, their support would be enough to ensure Mr Odinga defeats Mr Ruto.

Kenyans have historically tended to vote mostly on tribal lines. The Kikuyus have no serious contender on the ballot for the first time since the reintroduction of multi-party elections in 1992. A vote for Mr Odinga would be arguably the best way to preserve Kikuyu political and commercial influence. At 77, he is not in the best of health. If he failed to survive two full terms, his Kikuyu running-mate, Martha Karua, would succeed him. Moreover, Mr Kenyatta may serve as chairman of the ruling coalition under an Odinga presidency. As this would provide another guarantee of preserving the influence of their foremost family, Kikuyus might be expected to do the outgoing president’s bidding.

Yet opinion polls suggest that Mr Odinga will struggle to secure much more than a quarter of the vote in Kikuyu-dominated central Kenya. A recent poll gave Mr Ruto a lead in that area of 38 percentage points, although the latest countrywide polls suggest that Mr Odinga has belatedly opened up a solid lead overall, irrespective of Kikuyuland. In any event, far from being a coronation for Mr Odinga at his fifth attempt to clinch the presidency, the race is tight.

The president’s kinsmen apparently dislike Mr Kenyatta so much that many would rather elect Mr Ruto, even though he is an ethnic Kalenjin charged by the International Criminal Court (icc) in The Hague with instigating attacks that killed hundreds of Kikuyus after a disputed election in 2007. If he were to win, a swift Kikuyu return to the presidency would be unlikely.

Mr Ruto, a dynamic 55-year-old, is one of Kenya’s canniest politicians. The manner in which he has turned once deeply hostile territory into a bastion of support outside his homeland in the Rift Valley testifies to his guile. Calculating that he could not secure the presidency without their backing, Mr Ruto has spent much of the last five years running a campaign to persuade Kikuyus to forget about the past by tapping into present grievances.

His message is classically populist. He presents himself as the champion of the poor, forced to “hustle” in order to survive in the face of a self-serving political elite dominated by rich and powerful family dynasties. The rhetoric is quasi-Trumpian: drain the dynastic swamp, Mr Ruto seems to say, and Kenya’s problems will be over.

Such arguments have found fertile ground across the country, particularly among the have-nots. Mr Ruto, who makes much of his past selling chicken on the street while shrugging off his present wealth, enjoys a polling lead among those who earn less than $170 a month. For the first time a Kenyan election is being fought as much on class as ethnic lines. Mr Ruto’s backers sound untroubled by his great wealth, his authoritarian streak or the question-marks over the character of his running-mate, Rigathi Gachagua, a Kikuyu who is also hugely rich. Mr Ruto’s critics doubt he will bother about constitutional niceties if he wins.

For his part, Mr Kenyatta in office has struggled to shake off the perception of a conflict of interests. So large are his family’s commercial interests, encompassing everything from dairy farming and tourism to banking and the building of a new city, that a growing number of Kikuyus assume he has been governing more in the interests of his family than his people.

“The Kenyatta family are not held in very high regard,” says King’ori Wathobio, a big businessman in Nyeri, a Kikuyu citadel in the central highlands. His eyes were opened, he says, in 2019 when Kenyatta-owned Brookside Dairy, Kenya’s biggest milk enterprise, “arbitrarily” slashed the prices it paid to small-scale producers. “I immediately called my broker and told him to sell all my cows. It was unbelievable. These guys have a monopoly and yet they were reducing prices when their profits were going up.”

“Uhuru is from a rich family,” says Wanja Muchiri, who runs a small fabric shop in Karatina. “If you asked him the price of bread he would have no idea.” “We are ruled by the richest man in the country and yet we are still poor,” says Mwangi Githinji, a lorry driver in Gatundu, the Kenyatta family’s home town. As for Mr Odinga, Mr Kenyatta’s endorsement of him has tarnished his old reputation as champion of the needy.

A dynastic merry-go-round

Indeed, Mr Ruto denounces Mr Odinga, lord of the Luo, as just another dynast. After all, his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, was Kenya’s first deputy president. The irony is that the Odinga family has long sought to speak for the underdog and for decades has bitterly opposed Kikuyu business and political dominance. Unreconstructed Kikuyu types in the central highlands still sneer at the Luo.

Yet political relationships in Kenya can change with giddying speed. In the stormy aftermath of the 2007 election Mr Ruto’s Kalenjin and Mr Odinga’s Luo were pitted together against the Kikuyu. More than 1,000 people on all sides were killed, and 600,000 displaced. Yet nowadays many Kikuyus seem to shrug. “It’s just politics,” says Nduma Wangui, a potato seller in Karatina.

Besides, Mr Ruto always denied involvement. In 2016 the icc suspended the case against him after prosecution witnesses changed their testimony or disappeared. True, the judges hearing the case may have declined to acquit Mr Ruto. Mention this to many Kikuyus, however, and the response is the same: “Who was Ruto’s boss in that election?” asks Ms Wangui. “Raila Odinga!”

Though in the past Mr Kenyatta has competed acrimoniously with Mr Odinga, once calling him “a madman”, he may have concluded that, as a fellow dynast, he would not investigate the Kenyatta family’s wealth. A President Ruto, by contrast, might find it a juicy target, especially if Kenya were to face a financial crisis: its debt has surged nearly fivefold under the current presidency.

A legal challenge by the election loser is likely, especially if the result is close. Kenya’s judicial system is more robust than most in Africa. The Supreme Court ordered a re-run of the last election, in 2017, when scores were killed; Mr Odinga then boycotted the fresh poll. Incidents of intimidation and ethnic incitement this time have so far been mercifully fewer. Whoever wins, a more-or-less peaceful election and the retirement of the third president in a row, in keeping with the constitution, would justify Kenya’s boast as a beacon of democracy and stability in one of Africa’s most troubled regions. ■