Going against the Grain of Ethnic Voting: The Scramble for Votes in the 2013 Presidential Election in Western Kenya

摘要

Political mobilization and voting patterns in Kenya have revolved around ethnicity since the return to multi-party politics in 1992. Since then the contest in successive years has been largely confined to the five big tribes who together constitute around 70% of the population. These are the Kikuyu, Luhya, Kalenjin, Luo and Kamba in that order. But while the Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Luo and Kamba have in one election or another rallied overwhelmingly behind their kin, the Luhya have been averse to this trend. This was more so in the 2013 election when conventional wisdom dictated that the Luhya’s true to Kenyan tradition would rally behind the candidature of Musalia Mudavadi. The results however proved otherwise. This article teases out the factors that have influenced the Luhya’s voting pattern generally in addition to specifically assessing the factors that explain Mudavadi’s inability to galvanize the Luhya vote akin to candidates from the other four big tribes.