To understand how the pre-election favorite managed to successfully squander their advantage and eventually lose the election we need to analyze the election from a marketing perspective and deconstruct how Kwanza snatched an election from Azimio ’ s sure win .
When the presidential elections started there were a staggering fifty six candidates that felt qualified to lead this country to greater heights but the referee was determined to decide the game on round one and they screened off any serious contenders who might have forced a second round .
If anyone was going to accuse the IEBC of having a rigging intent then this is when they should have started to raise the red flag and protested . Kenya actually had a very controlled election in that we were put between a rock and a hard place and required to make a restricted choice .
Using whatever excuse in the book they cut the numbers to four and billed the contest as a two-horse race by including two inconsequential aspirants who were not going to dent the statistics and divert the contest from the main contenders . To win one just needed the magical fifty plus one .
The playing field had been leveled and any serious strategist would have realized that the contest was going to be close and in a close contest every single vote counts . That is why Wajakoyah caused a ripple as he unexpectedly appeared to be in a position to destabilize a well laid plan .
The Kenyan voter was actually given a
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Nobody , especially Baba likes the moniker ‘ serial loser ’ attached to his name and in this last election the stars had aligned for him and his quest for the golden chalice came a cropper due to hubris , ignorance and incompetence . choice of two products , Azimio with a seasoned and popular politician who is also a polarizing one and Kwanza with a youthful energetic leader with a talent for mobilization and an eloquent public speaker .
The two main contestants had been in the same team in 2007 , therefore they intimately knew each other and one would have expected that they appreciated each other ’ s strengths and weaknesses . Kwanza managed to get off the block first .
They successfully locked out Azimio from the vote rich Mount Kenya region by a clever use of the traditional Railaphobia in the area and casting his opponent as a privileged member of the dynasties that Uhuru was trying to impose on them .
Kwanza had quietly traversed and canvassed the ground while building goodwill and by the time the handshake took shape all Kwanza did was to ramp up the effort in their areas of influence and started to lay groundwork for getting the extra votes .
Kenyans were surprised when Kwanza picked the brusque Gachagua as a running mate instead of the refined Kindiki ; Kwanza realized that every vote would count and that Gachagua would do a better mobilization job on the ground . It was a good vote protecting strategy .
On the other camp Azimio was letting go of votes in their traditionally strong areas . They allowed Kwale to shift allegiance and ignored overtures from Kingi and Mutua to be included in the Azimio family surrendering them to Kwanza plus their vital votes , after all these were governors and still had some clout .
When the Jubilee party imploded and Jubilee stalwarts began to decamp and started to disown their party in favor of Kwanza , Azimio should have taken stock of the situation at hand but chose to ignore what the grassroots was telling them .
A glaring example of how Azimio lost vital votes was in Nairobi , where in their wisdom , they prevailed on a popular gubernatorial ODM candidate to step down for a Jubilee imposed one which allowed a Kwanza candidate to clinch the gubernatorial seat in an Azimio stronghold .
The choice of Karua as a running mate , although good on paper had no effect on the Mt . Kenya region . Karua did not have adequate time to make any significant inroads in the region since her appointment came in late in the campaign but it certainly lost many disillusioned Wiper votes .
In marketing , a campaign blitz like the one Karua mounted in Mt . Kenya is meant to create awareness not to convert . To convert requires a more sustainable marketing effort aimed at crucial influencing institutions like the churches which were already heavily entrenched in the Kwanza camp .
Azimio ’ s attempt to cast the Kwanza duo as a thieving pact with no integrity fell flat because Azimio naively forgot that Kenyans always support the underdog and if taking the high road ever worked then Kenya would never have elected people who had pending cases at The Hague in the first place .
Drawing attention to the failings of Kwanza on the integrity scale had exactly the opposite effect intended , it actually earned them sympathy votes since the government which Azimio was unfortunately inextricably bound to , had too many corruption scandals of their own .
Those who live in glass houses should never throw stones , as Patni never tired of reminding government officials trying to pin corruption charges on him . Azimio was helping its competitor gain a few more votes in a contest where every vote counts .
We have not been able to ascertain who told Azimio that the only place one can rig an election is at Bomas since one can rig at any point in the electoral process . A case in point is the amount of resources and time that was poured into this election .
The IEBC is mandated by the constitution to stipulate how the election process shall be conducted . They state when the campaigns will start and when they will end plus a host of other requirements to ensure a free and fair election . There are candidates who were barred from contesting the elections because they had not resigned from their public posts by the stipulated time so when did the Kwanza star resign from his public office and why was he allowed to campaign for the last five years ?
Kwanza was long campaigning even before Azimio got together as an outfit since Baba did not declare his intent to contest the presidency until quite late . Why was Kwanza allowed to conduct an illegal campaign or was it because the handshake was also illegal ?
Kenyans never got to know the intricacies
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