Gitau Warigi
15 June 2008
Nairobi — Looking at the bigger picture, who between ODM and PNU really won Wednesday's by-elections? Naturally, both PNU and ODM are claiming overall victory, this being the first test of strength between the two since their showdown last December.
With three seats out of five, ODM asserts the outcome is self-evident. PNU replies that the status quo prior to the by-elections and what has changed is what matters. The party had started off with zero seats and has gained two - Embakasi and Kilgoris. ODM was defending three seats - Ainamoi, Emuhaya and Embakasi - but lost the latter, while gaining Wajir North. In the end, ODM held onto three seats, which it started with.
Actually, determining who won in the overall stakes is not straightforward business. The consideration starts with the two seats that neither belonged to ODM nor PNU from the beginning - Kilgoris and Wajir North.
Traditionally, politics of North-Eastern Province is not so much about parties as it is about clans. Perhaps nowhere else in the country are clan loyalties so strong. In December, Wajir North constituency had produced a peculiar result: a tie between the Kanu candidate Dr Ali Abdullahi and ODM's Mr Mohammed Gabow.
Advantage in clan numbers
Both are from the majority Ajuran clan there. So the bottomline became sub-clans, of which Dr Abdullahi's Garen is bigger than Mr Gabow's Waqale. Dr Abdullahi's advantage in clan numbers had enabled him to remain MP since 1997. But the rise of ODM last year seriously disturbed the regular clan rhythm.
By deftly playing the card of religion (Islam), marginalisation and anti-Mt Kenya sentiment, ODM managed to erode Kanu's historical hold in the province in 2007.
There remained Kanu stalwarts in the region for sure such as Defence Minister Yusuf Haji in Garissa (and as could be seen from Dr Abdullahi's election tie with Mr Gabow), but the fact that the Wajir by-election was by law confined to the two candidates who had tied doomed the now PNU-allied Dr Abdullahi when a third sub-clan - Galbaris - apparently backed the ODM man. Many of the constituency's youth, reportedly, opted to go with December's wave and backed ODM.
But the most explosive result was in Kilgoris in the traditional Maasai region of Trans Mara. It is a bit of a misnomer to describe Mr Gideon Konchella's resounding victory as a win for PNU. It was actually the result of a communal fait accompli the Maasai had given to Kipsigis migrants, who had fronted Mr Jonah Ng'eno through ODM.
In retrospect it seems ODM miscalculated by nominating a non-Maasai. The genuine mileage the party had gained in Maasailand last year dissolved quickly in Trans Mara over Mr Ng'eno's candidacy.
Vote-counting in Kilgoris last December was violently disrupted by morans when it appeared Mr Ng'eno, who was then in Kaddu, was getting the upper hand. That upper hand was made possible because two native Trans Mara heavyweights, Mr Konchella himself and Kanu's Mr Julius Sunkuli, were running against each other and had split the core Maasai vote in the area.
This time, Maasai elders across the board moved swiftly to prevail on the two to unite to counter the serious Kipsigis threat. In the end, PNU was simply the lucky beneficiary of a Maasai communal pact to back their own against the ODM "alien".
Any other party would have benefited from the same if it was the choice of the candidate the collective Maasai leadership had rallied behind.
As for Embakasi, PNU's victory through Mr Ferdinand Waititu was not really a surprise. The numbers seem to favour the party in this constituency. In fact, ODM had won the seat in December against all expectations and only because the two leading PNU-leaning candidates, Mr Waititu and former city mayor John Ndirangu had split the bedrock PNU vote to allow the late Mr Mellitus Were to sneak through.
The pro-PNU convergence in Embakasi seemed sufficiently strong as to rope in the Kamba vote as well such that Mr Kalembe Ndile could only manage a paltry 843 votes.
Mood of discontent
Though Ainamoi and Emuhaya fall in what is presumed to be ODM territory, a rather nuanced and quite unexpected surprise lay in store. ODM's Benjamin Langat's victory in Ainamoi was not the runaway landslide earlier expected.
A party nomination snafu blamed on what rivals claimed was a top-level ODM "imposition" of the youthful Mr Langat (brother to the short-lived MP-elect David Kimutai) had seen one Mr Paul Chepkwony peel away to run on the UDM ticket.
He got prompt backing from other claimants among them former military vice-chief John Koech. When the ballots were in, the margin of Mr Langat's victory was slightly less than 2,000 votes.
All of which tallied with what has been clearly a mood of discontent in the Kipsigis region about what some leaders there perceive to have been a raw deal in cabinet appointments dealt to them by the ODM hierarchy.
ODM had similarly to fend off an unexpectedly stiff fight from Mr Cyrus Jirongo's Kaddu party to retain Emuhaya.
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