Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, his Vice President, William Ruto and opposition leader Raila Odinga appear to take Kenya to the direction already described by the UK’s political analyst, George Hope, about the position of political parties in the UK, the influence of a contestant or aspirants in the election.
Hope analysed the UK (The United Kingdom) General Election held on May, 7, 2015 that it was far bigger than the politics of political parties. His analysis was headlined; “This Election is Far Bigger than Party Politics.”
Likewise, the US political analyst, Chris Trueman, once described the politics of political parties as they were losing their directions and instead the power of influence of an individual contestant becomes a huge capital.
This is because a member of the Republican Party can nowadays vote for a contestant from the Democrat party, due to their influence.
Mr Barack Obama of the Democrat managed to influence Colins Powell of the Republican, who announced in public to vote for Obama and as a result other Republicans voted for the former.
Powell is former United States Secretary of State in the first presidential term of President George Bush.
Turning to Kenya, based on the arguments of both Hope and Trueman, the Kenyan politics towards the 2022 polls will make the influence of contestants more powerful than their political parties.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has already pledged to stand for Raila in the next year presidential polls, which means the incumbent head of state will not support his vice president, Ruto.
Until now, President Kenyatta is still the leader of the Jubilee party from which Ruto is his deputy.
This means that towards the 2022 polls in Kenya, President Kenyatta is not based on the position of a party, but on who is suitable to take the top job in the country.
In addition, the trend shows that Kenyans have now stopped deliberating on tribalism in obtaining the next leader of their country.
Recently, President Kenyatta met the leaders of One Kenya Alliance (OKA), whereby the main agenda was to convince the OKA leaders, Gideon Moi, Moses Wetang’ula, Musalia Mudavadi and Kalonzo Musyoka, to support Raila because the latter is the only person who can defeat Ruto in the forthcoming polls.
The meeting that was held at Mombasa State Lodge in Kenya, was also attended by Kakamega county governor Wycliffe Oparanya, who is a member of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party led by Raila.
What came out from the meeting was that all the leaders had agreed to stand behind Raila against Ruto.
However, according to The Star tabloid of Kenya, only one leader from OKA, Mudavadi, who is the leader of the Amani National Congress (ANC) party, disagreed a 100 percent to support Raila, although President Kenyatta warned that OKA would not win if they would not field Odinga.
However, the sudden popularity that the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party has got in Kenya is an indication how the powerful influence of Ruto is in Kenya’s next year presidential race. For now Ruto leads the UDA party.
