Nairobi, Kenya – On August 9, 22.1 million registered Kenyans will go to the polls to elect the country’s fifth president and successor to the current Uhuru Kenyatta.
Although the main focus is on the high-profile presidential race, across the 47 counties, the electorate will also cast votes for county governors, parliamentary representatives and other lower-level offices.
Despite being ineligible for election after serving two terms as limited by the constitution, Kenyatta continues to hold center stage in the polls. He backs leading candidate Raila Odinga, his old archrival who is running for president for a record fifth term.
The other main challenger is Vice President William Ruto, who served two terms under Kenyatta but has since feuded with his boss after the latter’s reconciliation with Odinga.
Here are five reasons why this election is so hotly contested, and what to look for.
Economy at stake
Kenya, one of the largest economies in Africa, has a thriving technology sector and the World Bank has projected its gross domestic product (GDP) to grow 5.5 percent by the end of 2022.
But the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rising cost of food due to disruptions in wheat supplies as Russia continues to invade Ukraine, have hit the economy and rising unemployment levels.
That has led to a rise in the cost of living that could be a deciding factor in the election, seen as a referendum on Kenyatta’s presidency. Ultimately, he could tilt sectors of the public away from his preferred candidate, Odinga, toward his deputy, Ruto, from whom he is estranged.
Parts of the north are also experiencing severe drought, part of one of the driest spells to hit the Horn of Africa region in more than 30 years.
And things could get even worse, analysts say.
“Commodity prices are currently volatile and trending upwards,” Magdalene Kariuki, director of public policy at Africa Practice’s Nairobi office, told Al Jazeera. “Food inflation rose to around 18.8 percent in June, up from 12.4 percent in May, but the government is making efforts to ensure stabilization and protect Kenyans.”
“The public debt to GDP ratio is expected to reach 70 percent of GDP in 2022,” he said. “If a presidential candidate says that only a third of the current budget is what is left for development, then one must question some of the manifesto promises that are being made, questioning how practical or feasible they are.”
Given the politicization of economic indicators, whoever wins will have to get down to business immediately.
regional stability
Kenya is seen as a healthy democracy and a beacon of stability in East Africa, especially with Uganda and Rwanda having long-standing iron-fisted rulers.
It is also a key power broker in the Great Lakes region that covers Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC, Rwanda and Uganda. And its influence also extends to its neighbors in the Horn of Africa, given its proximity to Somalia, where the armed group al-Shabab, linked to Al Qaeda, still controls part of the territory and has carried out several attacks in recent years in Kenyan soil.
But it is perhaps the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is struggling to defeat the hundreds of armed groups fighting across the country, especially in the east, that could use Kenya’s intervention.
“With the accession of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the East African Community in March this year, the country developed even closer ties with Kenya and President Kenyatta became a mediator in the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, facilitating talks with armed groups in Nairobi,” he said. Nelleke van de Walle, project manager for the Great Lakes region at the International Crisis Group. “The newly appointed EAC Kenyatta as special facilitator for this so-called Nairobi process, a position he will continue to hold until he leaves the presidency.”
In 2018, Felix Tshisekedi, now President of the DRC, launched his presidential campaign in Nairobi and was endorsed by Kenyatta. The latter was, in fact, the only president head of state at the swearing-in ceremony of his Congolese counterpart in January 2019, due to the controversial nature of the elections.
A peaceful democratic transition would further boost Kenya’s position and sphere of influence in the region, even with Kenyatta gone, analysts say.
But an Odinga presidency would appear to be the best scenario for regional stability and would continue Kenyatta’s alignment with the DRC, van de Walle told Al Jazeera.
“Odinga was close to President Tshisekedi’s father and introduced him to Kenyatta,” he said. “If William Ruto is chosen, it remains to be seen if Kenya will continue to play an active role. Ruto has closer business ties to Ugandan President Museveni and is less popular in the Democratic Republic of Congo than Odinga or Kenyatta.
Electoral reforms, political climate
In 2007, more than half a million people were displaced and more than a thousand killed after the electoral commission announced President Mwai Kibaki as the winner of the election against Odinga, who is believed to have been the real winner.
A coalition government was then sworn in, with Kibaki as president and Odinga as prime minister, and they helped enact a new constitution to reform the electoral process.
There were also pockets of violence in the subsequent elections of 2013 and 2017, with the Supreme Court operating under the supremacy of the constitution, declaring a rerun of the presidential elections.
The new constitution gave more powers to the judiciary, but some other amendments include the condition for greater representation of women and the elaborate bill of rights.
A section of the new constitution includes strict criteria for leadership that made some candidates ineligible to run in elections; For example, former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko, who is impeached, was barred from running in the upcoming election for governor in Mombasa County. The Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission or IEBC also disqualified applicants in the country who have been previously convicted in court.
Although it was only partially implemented, it also helped soften the political climate by “delegating and decentralizing powers and reducing risks in presidential elections,” said Nicolas Delaunay, who covers Kenya for the International Crisis Group. Some institutions, particularly the judiciary, have also been strengthened, he said.
And that means speculation about possible violence in this election, which could match 2007 levels, is unlikely, he told Al Jazeera.
“Kenya has come a long way since then and while tensions are rising, they are mostly between the elites, whereas in reality social tensions between communities have been at their lowest point during an election period in recent memory,” said. “There is always a level of unpredictability… but if there is some violence, we don’t expect it to reach 2007 levels.”
Changing the dynamics in voting
A highly heterogeneous society, Kenya has more than 47 officially recognized ethnic groups.
And at the core of his politics, ethnic loyalties and identity play a role, especially for three of the largest groups: the Kikuyu, the Luo and the Kalenjin.
The Kikuyu, also known collectively as the Mount Kenya region, are the largest and effectively the largest voting bloc in the country. No Kikuyu is at the head of a major party for the first time since independence in 1963. But three of the four presidential candidates have chosen Kikuyu as their running mates to appeal to that bloc.
But Vice President William Ruto effectively framed the conversation as one of “hustlers versus dynasties,” a class contest between rich and poor.
And analysts say that while ethnicity and church continue to be influential in elections, this could perhaps be the start of a changing dynamic in the election conversations.
“Class will definitely play a role in this election, especially since the majority of the population are young and unemployed and don’t have access to opportunities,” Nerima Wako-Ojiwa, executive director of Siasa Place, a youth-led nonprofit that engages youth in politics and governance, he told Al Jazeera. “Many of them live below the poverty line, so the majority who are poor and considered scammers would identify with that narrative.
“This has been around since independence, we have a large poor population and that is why the economy is center stage for most manifestos,” he said.
Prisoners and people in the diaspora
Kenyans in the diaspora make up between three and four million people in total, according to data from the authorities. And it is estimated that there are 54,000 inmates distributed among the 134 prisons in the country.
Unlike many other African countries, both groups of people are eligible to vote. This is in addition to the rest of the population that is over 18 years of age and has never been convicted of electoral crimes.
But it comes with a caveat: Prisoners can only vote in presidential elections, not in other local elections.
Prisoners began voting in the 2017 elections. This was after civil society groups went to court after the promulgation of the 2010 constitution to get prisoners to register as eligible voters.
In January 2013, a Nairobi court granted their wish, but it was too late for the IEBC to include them in the 2013 election.
Before the elections on Tuesday, the registered voters in the diaspora are 10,444, more than double the number (4,223) in the last cycle. The number of registered voters in prison is also 7,483, 44 percent more than the 5,182 in the last election.
Another community poised to vote in the elections are the Shona, who have been stateless since they arrived as missionaries from Zimbabwe in 1959 until two years ago when more than 1,000 officially became citizens.
This is the first time they have voted in Kenya.
