The ‘Tyranny of Numbers’ and Raila’s waning National Appeal
The year 2007 was an electoral disaster, nobody knows who won! The Electoral Commission went as far as claiming that both sides rigged the election. However, what was not in doubt is that Raila Odinga had assembled a massive national voting bloc that ran through the Rift Valley, Western, Coast, Nyanza, Nairobi and Northeastern. There was a ‘handshake’ with President Mwai Kibaki and Raila has continued with this tradition in what now appears to be part of presidential handover notes. Some years back we had been made to believe that Kibera slums in Nairobi had a population of more than one million people until the national census put that figure at around 170, 000. Following the 2007 fiasco, we have also unquestionably accepted that Raila is an enigma with numbers. Fast-forward to 2013, Kibaki probably realized that he could not guarantee his deputy Kalonzo Musyoka votes from his backyard and that could have informed his decision not to endorse him. Uhuru Kenyatta had his ...