Behold, a million Kenyan poll experts

Kenya leads Africa, and the world, in a few things. Lately in hot competition with Ethiopia, it is a global long distance-running powerhouse. It’s the largest exporter of cut flowers to the European Union, and the world’s third largest exporter of flowers (or fourth, depending on who is counting). Safaricom (at least for a long while) was by far Africa’s most innovative mobile phone company.

Politics, especially electoral politics, is a staple food in many countries. In Kenya, however, it has been elevated to the food of the gods. Now, the country sounds like it has a million election experts. There is a national addiction. More than a year since the August 2022 election, on many days it feels like the ballot was only cast last week. The media can’t let it go. Kenyans on social media can’t help circling back, looking at what transpired in “new light” and in the context of fresh revelations about what “happened behind the scenes.”

This time, there has been a new development. Compared to previous elections, a record of books, nearly ten, of varying quality were published specifically on the 2022 election before the first year was out. That is more than was published in most of the past elections in five years. And there are extensive insights offered in interviews, and in long-form articles in newspapers and on websites, about what transpired.

Kenya’s election quarterbacking

Going by books on elections written in the English language, I now put Kenya behind the U.S., and most definitely in the top five, among the countries that produce most books on elections in the world.

The Americans have the perfect phrase to describe the nature of most of the books: “Monday morning quarterbacking.” The big games in American football (which is really rugby played by bigger men in helmets and body paddings) are played on Sunday. On Monday, with the benefit of hindsight, American homesteads and cities are swept with self-assured autopsies and offerings about how the game was lost or won, and the moves the quarterbacks should have made to save the honour of the home side. The phrase is now defined as “criticising the actions or decisions of others after the fact, using hindsight to assess situations and specify alternative solutions.” Part of Kenya’s election quarterbacking does not tell us much about how President William Ruto won, and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga lost. It is divided in three parts. There is apologia, where political actors try to explain how they changed sides; why they threw a political leader who used to feed them under the bus; or cast in favourable light some of the crazy things they did or said.

The second is mainly “cover your backside” stuff, by people who allegedly got money to deliver victories for presidential candidates in some districts and regions and failed to. These people will have been accused of “eating the money”, or working for the opponent. There are also those who were in charge of the candidates’ campaign, who try to present themselves in favourable light by blaming the candidate. “We had a winning strategy, but were let down by our candidate. He gathered hyenas and bad advisers around him, and became unreachable”, they say. They might even suggest that their candidate was lazy, and lacked discipline. Some of these fellows are usually hardnosed pragmatists, who seek to burnish their CVs and see if they can be forgiven so they get a piece of action from the new sheriff in town.

Kenya’s political sophistication

The third, is a mixed group. There is a growing class of Kenyan punditry that makes a living analysing politics and staring into crystal balls. Some of them are very serious, and do sleek presentations on their YouTube channels and other platforms. Then, there is also a growing scholarship and consultancy industry around elections, and politics in general.

A couple of these people in this group keep the election mill running after the vote for professional and commercial reasons. Some of them, though, because they make bold calls that didn’t pan out, are trying to save face. And those whose calls turned out right, are understandably eager to make noise about it, because it raises their premium, meaning they will do quite well as consultants at the next election cycle. For the government of the day, this new industry can be problematic. Even at this stage, it is developed enough to basically bury or paralyse the new government with a stream of negative commentary if it doesn’t like a particular policy.

For the country and wider society, its more beneficial. Though there is still a long distance to travel, it suggests a step forward in the evolution of Kenya’s political sophistication. A country that has a large body of people who understand politics intelligently, are not immersed in winning power for themselves, or driven by resentment because they lost, eventually gets smarter at understanding politics and how government works. So, let’s have another round of election quarterbacking, please.

Mr Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. X@cobbo3