With the 2022 August election clouding around the corner, focus is now fixed on two front runners, Raila Odinga and William Ruto.
Yesterday’s highly anticipated move by Wiper Democratic Movement leader and former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka to back Mr. Odinga had generated mixed reactions in the Kenyan political-spheres with analysts saying it’s a boost to Azimio la Umoja coalition.
Kalonzo’s move now leaves Deputy President William Ruto with only ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi and his Ford Kenya counterpart Moses Wetang’ula as senior politicians in his camp despite Ruto having referred to them as ‘village party leaders” in the past interviews.
But who is likely to win the next presidential election with Raila now backed by over 22 political parties in Kenya. In our editorial today, we use the 2017 presidential results to project a possible winner in 2022.
In 2017, there were 19 million registered voters in Kenya. President Uhuru Kenyatta garnered 8.2 million votes while Raila Odinga pocketed 6.8 million votes, a difference of 1.4 million votes. That’s a total of 15M, meaning around 4M voters didn’t cast their votes for any presidential aspirant.
Out of Uhuru’s 8.2 million votes, Ruto is assumed to have contributed 1.4M votes from his Rift Valley region. Now with Ruto having opted out of the Jubilee marriage, Uhuru is assumed to have remained with at least 6.8 million voters behind his back.
But not all those 6.8 are still supporting Uhuru. Ruto has inherited a good number of them to a tune of around 2M, leaving Uhuru with around 4.8M vote support.
At this point, Ruto has 1.4M plus 2M which is 3.4M. However, the same Ruto has raided some Raila Odinga’s backyards including Western Kenya by an assumed one million votes, making it 4.4M votes against Raila’s remaining 5.8M..
Now, with Uhuru backing Raila, that gives Raila an extra 6.8M, which makes it 12.6M votes for Raila, a difference of 6.8M votes over William Ruto.
Remember, we are working against a total of 15 million valid votes cast in 2017 but this year, there’s a total of 22 million voters across the county, meaning there are 3 million new voters over the 2017’s 19 million total registered voters.
Assuming that the 4 million votes figure who didn’t vote in 2017 remains constant up to 2022 and assuming that the new voters will vote for William Ruto and not Raila Odinga, that will mean Ruto’s 5.8 increases by 3 million votes to make it 8.8 million (of course not all the new registered voters will vote for Ruto).
The projected end results will put Ruto at 8.8 million votes against Raila Odinga’s 12.6 Million votes with Raila beating Ruto with a whooping 3.8 million votes.
Remember, we have assumed that all the three million new voters will vote for Ruto but if the two were to share 50%-50%, then Raila will get an extra 15Million votes and Ruto will lose 1.6 million votes to make it 6.3 Million votes for Ruto against Raila Odinga’s surged 14.1 million votes. But for now, let’s leave it at that.
From the above figures, it’s nearly confident to state that Azimio Presidential candidate Rt. Hon Raila Amolo Odinga is the next President of the Republic of Kenya.
(NB: The views expressed here are solely of the author and does not reflect the position of Wakajuaness.Com).