Governors’ factor in August presidential polls

Governors are increasingly becoming a big factor in the run up to the 2022 presidential elections. First, at the perception level, it does appear that the more sitting governors a presidential candidate has, the higher the likelihood of winning over the undecided voters.

Political communication studies and the experience in Kenya have shown that in most instances, where the majority appear to be supportive of a certain political cause, those of the contrary opinion tend to keep their contrary opinion to themselves in a spiral of silence that can possibly create a bandwagon.

We have seen this in two previous referenda, one that was lost in 2005 and the 2010 one that gave us the current constitution.

Today the candidate with more governors can create that bandwagon effect, but only if these governors pull their weights and campaign for the candidate far and wide, in a distributed and hypermedia campaign model.

These governors should essentially run independent campaigns in their own regions and effectively use the legacy media, to create awareness that they are doing the bidding for their presidential candidate, use social media to distribute the same message and because of their proximity to the people on the ground, engage the people at interpersonal and group communication level to change behaviour of the locals and win votes.

In typically hyper media campaign, the awareness created on the legacy media, that is, radio, TV and newspapers, should be the same as the contextualised messages in public rallies, on the digital platform, social media and interpersonal and group communication, to create that winning sense by permeating any space that is dependent on mediated communication.

Such a distributed hypermedia campaign would still need strategic political communication to ground the messaging on a winning formula. This is because perception alone cannot win an election, especially in a multi-ethnic society like ours where democracy is almost synonymous with ethnocracy – a contest of ethnicities and not necessarily ideas.

Nevertheless, there are two sides to governors. The ones completing their first terms are essentially indicators of the voice of the people on the ground. You see, a sitting governor gunning for a second term is definitely angling for a political formation, that is likely to support the quest to retain the seat and they would only join a formation that would propel them to victory.

These governors clearly point us to a certain direction in as far as the political pulse of their counties are concerned. Where they move, especially if they do with a sizeable number of Ward Reps, you can rest assured the presidential candidate they join is the person to beat in such counties. Their power of incumbency is also critical in provision of a campaign infrastructure.

The second side is governors who have served their last terms. These governors have no specific position they are seeking and for them to remain relevant, the candidates they support must win. In fact, their regions must bring in significant support to the presidential candidate they support and they are an asset, to whoever they support because they come already incentivised to win votes.

Last week Raila Odinga paraded close to 30 governors, a number that is likely to increase given the political tidal waves Azimio La Umoja seems to be creating in the run up to the polls. These governors can easily cover their regions and lock out other presidential candidates, by focusing on targeted campaigns and messaging that would sell Raila even without him attending all these distributed rallies.

In fact, the spread of the 30 plus governors and the emergence of a distributed Azimio La Umoja campaign teams will probably pass the Azimio message quite strongly and neutralise the many campaigns that the Hustler team mounts in a day.

Granted, campaigns in Kenya demand constant interactions with the people and the people are moved by campaigners who keep the message going at the grassroots. To this end, a distributed campaign by all these governors supporting Raila and purveying the same message to regional targeted groups of Kenyans in different areas, if well executed will effectively be the clincher in August 2022.
—hesbonhansen@gmail.com