‘Wantam’ doesn’t offer regime target it needs in 2027

Something interesting is unfolding in Kenyan politics. The regime has realised that running against no candidate is far more complicated than facing a familiar rival.

‘Tutam’ praise singers have certainly come to the reality that they would rather have a name, a single, visible opponent they can isolate, demonise, and discredit, than face an amorphous, rising idea that is gaining traction every day and getting the urgency that is real.

In political strategy, this is not new.

Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, in their classic Manufacturing Consent, argue that elites maintain their privilege by identifying a bogeyman.

Once the bogeyman is found, the machinery of power, or what Louis Althusser called the Ideological State Apparatus, is unleashed.

State-owned and state-aligned media, religious pulpits, education systems, and even public events are mobilised to paint that opponent as dangerous, selfish, unfit, or unpatriotic.

But paradoxically, they also position this same demonised opponent, the bogeyman, as the main alternative, thus feeding into the illusion that elite power remains unthreatened because it controls the options.

With the opposition soldiering on as one outfit made up of about seven possible candidates, that formula is faltering.

The regime’s biggest challenge today is not one individual, though Riggy G has turned out to be a thorn in their flesh.

The biggest threat is the idea that once the opposition rallies strongly around relatable reasons for a regime change, and this morphs into “anyone but Ruto”, then ‘Wantam’ will become a legitimate movement.

And a strong movement backed by a majority of Kenyans will make any candidate strong.

It did make Kibaki strong in 2002, and the regime wants a candidate now because the risk of a strong movement is too much.

Simply put, the regime wants clarity, not because it values democratic choice, but because it needs a face to fight.

It needs to identify the “enemy” to launch its counterattack, through propaganda, lawfare, police repression, or character assassination.

The advantage they have now is that ‘Wantam’ is a loose clarion call with nothing much but shouts from aggrieved former allies.

But as long as ‘Wantam’ remains an idea, fluid, and shape-shifting, the regime will be left without a target. And it will get worse for the regime if ‘Wantam’ becomes issue-driven.

Contesting against a movement without a head is disorienting, and a movement anchored on issues that resonate with the electorate easily morphs into a formidable force.

A candidate can be boxed in. An idea evolves, and the more people it evolves with, the stronger the movement.

It grows with every injustice, every case of police brutality, every tax hike, every tone-deaf speech, and every broken promise.

‘Wantam’ may end up being more than just a slogan, and that is the real fear. The fear that it will quietly become a mass consciousness, a public reckoning, a referendum on betrayal and economic disillusionment.

The writer is a media studies Researcher

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