of the handshake , all they know is that it sensationally sidelined the deputy president and brought Baba into the spotlight . What is not explained by the government is soon enough explained by the rumor mill as the deputy raised the ante by campaigning .
This is how to lose an election , you allow a candidate of Kwanza ’ s caliber to get a head start and then you spend all your energy playing catch up . Kwanza had an unrestricted access to any part of the country and they mapped their detailed presidential assault with no hindrance .
Azimio could have rightfully gone to court to challenge the eligibility of Kwanza candidature as they had already flouted many of the laid down procedures but here we again find that Azimio was handicapped by the government ’ s sour relationship with the courts .
For democracy to work the three arms of government need to be in sync and pull in the same direction . It is wrong that a government is seen to support a particular candidate which in itself is undemocratic but to declare such support when the government independent arms are pulling apart is suicidal .
In a closely contested race it is assumed that if the results are close then it is reasonable to assume that court adjudication may be required . In such a scenario then the strategists must ensure that the courts are firmly on your side or at worst be neutral .
The relationship between the executive and the judiciary was at an all-time low during these elections plus a track record of the judiciary throwing out every case that the government sponsored with the climax being the throwing out of the BBI initiative with Azimio .
We will never know whether the election petition was the ultimate payback time for the judiciary to make its point but the stinging language that the Supreme Court used to dismiss the petitions unanimously indicates that there was no love lost between the judiciary and the executive .
The alacrity with which the Kwanza brigade moved to appoint the pending judges points to the fact they were alive to the tension between the judiciary and the executive and exploited the opportunity . This is how you lose a game by annoying the linesmen who disallow all your goals as offside .
The executive ’ s public relation disaster was not confined to the judiciary but extended to the legislature . When speakers of both houses resign and immediately join the opposing camp , that in itself should send seismic shocks through the system , amazingly it didn ’ t . Votes went .
As if the executives had not done enough damage the Azimio contributed to the public relation mess by making unforced gaffes . We wonder which strategic guru saw it fit to advise Baba to proclaim that he will ban mitumbas to reinvigorate the moribund textile industry .
Even before the furor that the statement caused had settled his spouse astoundingly stated that Azimio would regulate or ban the mushrooming churches that were evidently con outfits that were set up solely to con the faithful .
In marketing , perception matters , and as the marketers will tell you , perception is reality . The fact that the two issues raised were correct and legitimate concerns that should concern the citizenry , that is not how the message was received and votes flew out of the window .
The biggest handicap that the executive threw in Azimio ’ s way was to overtly declare Azimio supremo as its preferred candidate hence branding the outfit a government project . In the public eye the current president was looking for way to extend his tenure by having a stooge .
Amazingly the Azimio troops did not see this as a disadvantage but took pride in that the government machinery was on their side at last forgetting in their fool ’ s paradise that the government does not vote , it is the people that vote .
Rather than spend their time trying to shake off the ‘ project ’ tag , they seem to have adopted it sink and hook and it created a mood of overconfidence in their camp . In their minds the journey to state house was a fait accompli just waiting for August to roll by .
As incredible as it may seem , the Azimio camp seems to have resolved that the government was going to rig them into power since they reasoned that if in the past it is the government that allegedly rigged them out so since now they ‘ were ’ in the government , the government would do the needful .
So they ‘ organized ’ for an election without any ‘ organization ’. The adage that if you fail to plan you are actually planning to fail did not seem to dent their enthusiastic match to the statehouse which to them was going to be delivered on a silver platter .
They had five secretariats that did not bother to talk to each other as each was more concerned about the role they will play when they are in power . The infighting and tripping each other in the secretariat was the norm as they competed with each other in sycophancy .
The composition of the secretariat was spectacular , elitist ivory tower professors , lawyers , doctors and all those that could put together a world class theoretical manifesto but none of the canny grass root political operators who knew how to get the badly needed extra vote .
The secretariats were more concerned with what the statehouse furniture schemes would look like rather than what they had been created to do , charting the way to the statehouse . They behaved more like a wedding committee just waiting to celebrate the nuptials .
It is not clear why one would need five secretariats especially when one remembers that the purpose of the secretarial is to provide central command . Five command centers is a recipe for disaster especially when you add an interfering and opinionated family into the mix .
The secretariats did attempt to hire professional marketing agencies to roll out their campaign but family members overruled their decisions and went as far as firing some of the agencies . We are at a loss to explain why one would hire a dog and go on ahead to do the barking themselves !
To make issues direr , the secretariats were not funded and they were certainly not fundraising . We recall the famous or infamous one million shilling per plate dinner that Azimio denied having organized but we never heard about a credible alternative .
It can only be surmised that those who created the multiple secretariats and turned up for unfunded duty were doing so to be able to later claim they were in the Azimio bus and that when the spoils of state were going to be shared on reaching Canaan , they wanted to be counted .
The secretariats must have been producing reports and since they did not bother to talk to each other and did not have a
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