What 5m BBI signatures say about Kenyans

The job of the political opinion pollster, official intelligence analyst or media pundit in Kenya is beginning to feel like that of the long-suffering weatherman.

That very forthcoming survey respondent is to a pollster or intelligence analyst what the fake rain cloud is to the weatherman.

Not long ago, media reports alluded to some intelligence brief showing that only 17 per cent of Kenyans supported the Building Bridges Initiative report, which, among other things, proposed a constitutional referendum next year.

The reports suggested that President Uhuru Kenyatta, having consumed the said piece of intelligence, was seriously considering calling off the referendum.

 I’m told rumours about a hostile ground to BBI was similarly being purveyed as gospel truth, even in some WhatsApp groups for media professionals, with newsrooms that had been reluctant to pass it along being portrayed as regime collaborators.

Referendum

Last week, the BBI people dispatched booklets to towns and villages in different parts of the country looking for one million endorsement signatures and got more than five million in a few days. You don’t get so many people coming out to sign up on a hostile ground, do you?

I understand legitimate questions have been raised about the involvement of civil servants and use of public resources in the signature collection exercise.

The BBI people should actually be very worried about this particular issue being raised before the Supreme Court set to hear a couple of petitions seeking to block a referendum.

Yet the big turnout for the signature collection was largely consistent with the behaviour of Kenyan voters in recent elections. The views they express in public about any particular issue hardly ever reflect their true position on it, and even less so how they would vote.

In the past elections, some candidates have been seen to draw very large crowds to their campaign rallies in certain areas only to end up getting a handful votes.

Pandemic election

The unpredictable behaviour among voters is not limited to Kenya though. Donald Trump may have lost to Joe Biden in the US presidential election in November.

But more than 74 million Americans voted for the man who won’t concede, far more than the pollsters and the media gave him in a pandemic election.

During the UK Brexit referendum in 2016, they didn’t give the “Leave” voters much of a chance either. In Kenya, pollsters, official intelligence analysts and media also tend to underestimate the ability of the political elite and the grassroots networks they have built over the years.

Former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, appearing on the JKL show on Citizen TV in October, called them “geniuses”and compared the influence they have on their followers to the kind the mighty Prophet David Owuor has on his flock.

So if you still think that the ground is hostile to a referendum being supported by Uhuru Kenyatta, Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi, Charity Ngilu, and Moses Wetang’ula, think again.

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