Congratulations to President Uhuru Kenyatta on reelection. In the end, he outperformed the polls by having a well-oiled national campaign that paid close attention to down ballot races. Jubilee MPs, Governors, Senators, and MCAs were elected in Bungoma, Kakamega, and other key swing areas. Where the party won it won big; and in the places it lost, it stayed competitive. The same cannot be said for NASA-affiliates.

The polls were not that off. Kenyatta led in all but one poll conducted by Infotrak. In the end it appears that the undecideds stayed home. Turnout was relatively lower in Western and Coast regions (to regions with the biggest share of undecideds) relative to the national average. Odinga needed to at least match Kenyatta’s stronghold turnout in these regions to stay competitive.

Of the two models that I ran, the one incorporation registration rate as a measure of voter enthusiasm did better that the one that only considered historical turnout rates by region. Kenyatta supporters registered at high rates and followed through on Tuesday. Undecided Odinga supporters stayed home on Tuesday.

In a model that gives less weight to registration rates (as proxies for voter enthusiasm and likely turnout), the estimated vote share is Kenyatta 52.8% vs Odinga 47.2%. 

A more involved model that tries to estimate differential voter enthusiasm yields an even bigger advantage for Kenyatta (54% vs 46%). 

Turnout in 2013 was most certainly inflated by both CORD and the Jubilee Alliance.

Whatever one thinks of him, William Ruto is a political genius. After Tuesday has emerged as arguably the most powerful politician in Kenya. Initially I had thought that Jubilee Party was a bad idea that would end up depressing turnout by forcing everyone to vote for the same candidates. In the end it did not matter. Instead, Jubilee won big in the presidential election and, perhaps more importantly, swept key down ballot races. The party will command at least 49% of the seats in the 12 Parliament and will most certainly hit more than 50% with the support of friendly independents. Ruto has successfully vanquished the Moi family in Rift Valley politics. And more importantly, he is slowly emerging to be a national politician with a strong direct following outside of his core base. Only Odinga has managed to achieve this feat in the recent past.

Chances are very high that William Ruto will be the 5th President of Kenya. I must admit to have been wrong in assuming that his political stock would plummet as soon as Kenyatta won reelection. Instead, I think because of his hold on Jubilee his stock will only rise with time. Kenyatta’s elite base cannot push him aside. He has the numbers in Parliament and the very credible threat of inflicting maximum pain by raising political temperatures in the Rift Valley.

This will be a tough loss for Odinga supporters. At 72, this was surely his last stab at the presidency. There will be a lot to be said about the organization and strategy of his campaign — including the apparent lack of polling agents, failure to try and raid Jubilee strongholds, and own goal regarding the prospects of violence following a rigged election (the latter may have cost Evans Kidero the Nairobi governorship). There is also the issue of IEBC’s inability to relay results with the confidence of all parties concerned. However, despite the possibility of hacking of the results transmission system, the down ballot results point to a credible Kenyatta win. Unless more evidence becomes public, I am inclined to believe that this election was credible. The KIEMS system worked. IEBC should build on this success to strengthen the transmission system. It was messy, yes. But it was also most certainly better than last time.

This is a step forward in Kenya’s political development. The opposition is in disarray, but the real institutional fights are about to start within the Jubilee coalition. Ruto’s 2022 ambitions will likely force him to expand the size of the Jubilee coalition. He will likely reach out to Odinga’s base — including in Coast, Nyanza, Eastern, and Western regions. Kenyatta will also want to give himself some credible check on Ruto’s power and influence, which will force him to reach outside of Jubilee’s core constituency for institutional support. Recall that Jubilee is now pretty much Ruto’s party. It will be interesting to see how Joho, Nyong’o, Ngilu, and Oparanya react to all this.

I expect Kenyatta to be constrained by intra-Jubilee politics in his second term. I will say more on the likely political and policy direction of the second term after Kenyatta announces his new cabinet.

In the next fortnight I’ll probably put together a piece on the historical and political significance of Odinga’s likely exit from the political stage.

Hon. Raila Amolo Odinga is perhaps the one individual who has contributed  the most to democratic consolidation in Kenya since the early 1990s. He is also a tragic figure who has had to deal with personal shortcomings, family tragedy, and systemic rejection by Kenya’s powers that be — all played out in full view of the Kenyan public. In addition, it is impossible to talk about Odinga without mentioning the ethnic factor. I think that the biggest impact of this loss will be the Kenyanization of the Luo elite. Since Odinga Senior, the Luo elite have invested a lot in trying to change Kenya (at great expense for the Luo masses) — a fact that made Luo Nyanza the perennial epicenter of oppositionist politics. But with Odinga’s exit, this collective commitment to oppositionist politics will likely diminish. I expect Luo Nyanza politics to become more fragmented and transactional (i.e. less purist). All else considered, the Kenyanization of the Luo elite will probably be a good thing for the masses in Luo Nyanza.