At funerals, in rap videos or even inside public toilets, Kenya’s election candidates are leaving no stone unturned in their fight for votes.
In addition to traditional election convoys blasting slogans and giant posters plastered along roads, candidates have looked for ingenious ways to excite weary voters.
On Tuesday next week, 22.1 million Kenyans are to elect hundreds of representatives, including senators, governors, members of parliament and the nation’s next president.
Photo: AP
Six elections would be held, capping a campaign blitz that has punctuated the life of the country for several months.
In the capital, Nairobi, the race for the post of governor has taken an unexpected turn thanks to Polycarp Igathe, the ruling party’s candidate.
A former top bank executive, Igathe is a familiar face to Nairobians, who elected him deputy governor in 2017.
The 49-year-old resigned in 2020 over disagreements with his boss, scandal-hit Mike Sonko.
Since then, Igathe has made a no-holds-barred bid to win the governorship, doing everything from cleaning public toilets and washing cars to selling chapatis in the street.
The unusual campaign has prompted a torrent of comments on social media, occasionally enthusiastic, but more often making a joke at Igathe’s expense.
“Nairobians beware there is somebody known as Polycarp Igathe he can easily walk into your house as early as 5am to cook breakfast for you and even wash your utensils,” one person wrote on Twitter.
“He is accompanied by 10 camera men and security. So don’t confuse them with THIEVES,” the post added.
Another Twitter user joked: “I plan to go to the salon tomorrow; why am I telling you this? I’m just putting it out there in case Polycarp Igathe is on shampoo duty.”
The candidate is unfazed.
“The way I have designed my campaign, my first phase was to ground myself and root myself in Nairobians’ day-to-day lives,” he told the Standard newspaper in May.
For those less inclined to get their hands dirty, funerals have become a key staging ground for stump speeches, offering a captive audience.
The practice dates back decades, with funerals providing a rare opportunity for people to gather and speak freely during the 1978-2002 rule of then-Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi.
“Campaigning in funerals has become a culture,” political analyst Nerima Wako-Ojiwa told reporters. “A funeral is where you find a lot of people present, a ready public. You just show up and talk, it’s easy.”
When former Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki died in April, the two leading presidential candidates, Raila Odinga and William Ruto, used his funeral to advertise their credentials.
The two men have also turned to another staple of Kenyan politics, music, to lure prospective voters.
Ever since Kibaki adopted the hip-hop hit Unbwogable — a riff on Luo and English words meaning “unbreakable” — as his party’s anthem in 2002, music has become an indispensable part of Kenyan political campaigns.
This year, Odinga, 77, made an appearance in several music videos, including Leo ni Leo (“Today is the day” in Swahili), which has headlined many of his rallies.
Dressed in a bomber jacket and surrounded by 20-somethings, observers say the video aims to broaden the veteran politician’s appeal among young Kenyans.
One rap number, Sipangwingwi (“You don’t decide for me” in Swahili), has even sparked a battle of its own, with its two teenage creators splitting up over their political differences.
Since its release late last year, the song by two high-school students has accumulated more than 7.5 million views on YouTube and featured in thousands of TikTok videos.
However, the duo soon went their separate ways, with one supporting Odinga and the other backing Ruto, who used a version of the song as a campaign slogan.
Ruto’s riff on the rap hit Hatupangwingwi (“You don’t decide for us”) was aimed at the political “dynasties” represented by Odinga and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, whose families have dominated Kenyan politics for decades.
A government watchdog barred the use of the term hatupangwingwi in April, saying it amounted to “hate speech.”
Within hours of the announcement, Ruto wrote “Hatupangwingwi!” on Twitter accompanied by a remixed version of the song.
Last month, a court overturned the ban, inadvertently helping his slogan go viral less than a month before voting day.
On a beach in the Chinese coastal city of Xiamen, just a few kilometers from Taiwan’s Kinmen, life is carefree, despite some of the worst cross-strait tensions in decades. Ignoring warnings from Beijing, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday — the highest-ranking elected US official to visit the nation in 25 years — sparking a diplomatic firestorm. China yesterday launched some of its largest-ever military drills — exercises set to disrupt one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. However, on Xiamen’s palm-fringed beach, there was little concern. “A war? No, I don’t care,” a young IT worker surnamed
According to Forrest Gump, life is like a box of chocolates because “you never know what you’re going to get.” Now, an Indian remake of the movie has been hit by boycott calls over years-old comments by its Muslim star, Aamir Khan. It is the latest example of how Bollywood actors, particularly minority Muslims such as Khan, are feeling increased pressure under Hindu nationalist Indian Prime Minister Modi. Laal Singh Chaddha, an Indian spin on the 1994 Hollywood hit with Tom Hanks, is expected to be one of India’s biggest films of the year. This is due in large part to its
ACROPORA REVIVAL: A marine science official said that the results of recent studies showed that the reef can still recover in periods that are free of intense disturbances Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef now have the highest levels of coral cover in decades, an Australian government report said yesterday. Portions of the UNESCO heritage site showed a marked increase in coral cover in the past year, reaching levels not seen in 36 years of monitoring, the Australian Institute of Marine Science said. Scientists surveying 87 sites said that northern and central parts of the reef had bounced back from damage more quickly than some had expected, thanks mainly to fast-growing Acropora — a branching coral that supports thousands of marine species. “These latest results demonstrate the reef can still recover
Screams from soldiers being tortured, overflowing cells, inhuman conditions, a regime of intimidation and murder. Inedible gruel, no communication with the outside world and days marked off with a home-made calendar written on a box of tea. This is what conditions are like inside Olenivka, a notorious detention center where dozens of Ukrainian soldiers burned to death late last month, said a former prisoner of the camp outside Donetsk in the Russian-occupied east of Ukraine. Anna Vorosheva — a 45-year-old Ukrainian entrepreneur — gave a harrowing account to the Observer of her time inside the jail. She spent 100 days in Olenivka
RSS