Is the Kenyan election already decided?

Summary

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More or Less: "Is the Kenyan election already decided?"

BBC Radio 4 | March 4, 2013
Host: Ruth Alexander
Guests: Wesley Stevenson, Dr. Tom Wolf, Matai Ngunyi

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the claim that Kenya’s upcoming (2013) presidential election was already decided before voting, based on ethnic voter registration data. The show critiques the idea of an inevitable result—known as the “tyranny of numbers”—and digs into the evidence behind ethnic voting patterns, polling, and election dynamics. The latter part of the episode shifts briefly to explore the probability of lightning striking St. Peter’s Basilica on the day of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The “Tyranny of Numbers” Theory

• Claim: Political commentator Matai Ngunyi argues the election was already determined once voter registration closed.

  • Main assertion: Voters follow predictable ethnic lines.
  • Key quote:
    “The central argument is that in 1992, people voted ethnically 97 the same thing. 2002, the same thing. 2007, the same thing. Why should we do it differently this time? A banana tree does not give you bananas today and give you oranges tomorrow.”
    — Matai Ngunyi [01:05]

• Numbers cited:

  • Kenyatta & running mate’s ethnic blocs: 6.2 million registered voters
  • Odinga & running mate’s ethnic blocs: 2.8 million
  • Winning threshold: 7.1 million votes (51% of total) [01:43]

2. Critique of Ethnic Bloc Voting

• Polling Dispute: Pollsters, like Dr. Tom Wolf (Ipsos Synovate), say opinion polls tell a different story, with the leading candidates in a statistical tie or even with Odinga ahead in some.

  • Key quote:
    "Our poll had them in a statistical tie at about 44.5% each… no candidate seems to be within range of a first round victory unless there is a markedly significant difference in the turnout rate of their supporters."
    — Dr. Tom Wolf [02:16]

• Flawed Assumptions:

  • Not all members of an ethnic group vote for that group’s candidate.

  • Example: The third-place candidate, Mudavadi—a Luya—doesn’t command all Luya support; most polls report Luya voters favoring Odinga. [03:21]

  • Key quote:
    “The first flaw is his assumption that every voter from a particular ethnic group will vote for that ethnic group's presidential candidate. That is not true.”
    — Dr. Tom Wolf [02:58]

3. The Realities of Kenyan Voting Patterns

• Past exceptions:

  • Analysis from the African Centre for Open Governance shows ethnic voting is strong but not absolute.
  • Notable splits occurred in 1992 (Luya), and in 2002 (Luo). [03:42]

• Potential complications in 2013:

  • Historical tensions and violence between some ethnic groups (e.g., Kikuyu and Kalenjin) make bloc voting less certain. [04:08]

4. No Ethnic Group Can Win Alone

• Quote of the episode:

  • "No single ethnic group in this country comprises more than about 22% of the population... victory cannot be achieved without that more Catholic approach to building across ethnic coalition. So rather than use the term tyranny of numbers, I would say Kenya rather exhibits a safety of numbers..."
    — Dr. Tom Wolf [04:50]

  • Successful presidential campaigns require wide cross-ethnic alliances, not just dominance within a handful of groups.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Matai Ngunyi’s analogy:
  "A banana tree does not give you bananas today and give you oranges tomorrow." [01:05]

• Dr. Tom Wolf on oversimplification:
  "There is no reason to think that it's 100%." [02:58]

• Dr. Tom Wolf’s warning:
  “Victory cannot be achieved without that more Catholic approach to building across ethnic coalition… rather than use the term tyranny of numbers, I would say Kenya rather exhibits a safety of numbers…” [04:50]

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Important Timestamps

• Ethnic voting and numbers break-down: [01:21]
• Introduction of polling data: [02:07]
• Analysis of third-place candidate impact: [03:21]
• Past voting exceptions & present complications: [03:42–04:27]
• Population stats and coalition necessity: [04:50]

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Segment: Lightning Strikes St. Peter’s Basilica

• Main points: Experts explain that St. Peter’s is a large, prominent structure—thus often struck during stormy periods.

• Key quotes:
  "It means that the risk of it being struck by lightning, if lightning activity is present, is increased by the very nature of its size..."
  — Matthew Waldrom [07:08]

  "So the fact there were storms in the area makes it more likely that one of those storms would pass over the top of the Vatican and makes it more likely that St. Peter's would be struck."
  — Graham Anderson [08:21]

• Conclusion: No religious significance attributed to the event by Vatican officials. [08:39]

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Summary

The episode deconstructs the oversimplified idea that Kenya’s 2013 election result was locked in by ethnic registration counts. While ethnic identity strongly influences voting patterns, statistics, polling data, and historic precedents point to a more complex, unpredictable reality—where electoral success depends on building broad, cross-ethnic alliances. The “tyranny of numbers” is ultimately debunked as both a misleading and overly deterministic narrative. The show’s tone is rigorous yet conversational, grounding political debate in accessible statistical explanations.

Transcript

[BBC Announcer]

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[Ruth Alexander]

hello, this is More or Less on the BBC World Service. I'm Ruth Alexander. What were the chances of lightning striking St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican the just after the Pope announced he was resigning? We'll look at that in a few minutes. But first, is the result of next week's Kenyan election a foregone conclusion. Wesley Stevenson's here too. Hi, Wes.

[Wesley Stevenson]

Hi, Ruth. Yes, on Monday, Kenyans will go to the polls to elect their new president. But one political commentator says the election is already decided and in fact, that it was decided in December when voter registration closed.

[Ruth Alexander]

Matai Ngunyi says it's already obvious that Uhuru Kenyatta is well ahead of his main opponent, Raila Odinga. Why?

[Wesley Stevenson]

Because, as he told ntv, in Kenya, people will vote along ethnic lines.

[Matai Ngunyi]

The central argument is that in 1992, people voted ethnically 97 the same thing. 2002, the same thing. 2007, the same thing. Why should we do it differently this time? A banana tree does not give you bananas today and give you oranges tomorrow.

[Ruth Alexander]

So after voter registration closed in December, Mtayungun added up the number of voters belonging to the tribes of the two main candidates. There are 6.2 million voters from the tribes that Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto belong to, he says, and only about half as many 2.8 million voters from the tribes Raila Odinga and his running mate are part of.

[Wesley Stevenson]

This means, Matai Ngunyi says that Odinga has a lot more work to do than Kenyatta. To win, a candidate needs 51% of the overall vote. So in other words, the winning candidate needs 7.1 million people or more to vote for them.

[Ruth Alexander]

This analysis from Mataiungunyi has caused huge debate in Kenya about whether he's right. That there's, as he puts it, a tyranny of numbers deciding this election.

[Wesley Stevenson]

The people who are sceptical about this point to the fact that the opinion polls are telling a totally different story. Dr. Tom Wolf is from the pollsters in Ipsos Sinovit in Kenya.

[Dr. Tom Wolf]

Our poll had them in a statistical tie at about 44.5% each. Some polls have a little more spread, in one case, a 47% to 44 with a margin of error of about 2%. Another poll had them separated by 1.5%. But the conclusion is that one thing all the polls agree on is that no candidate seems to be within range of a first round victory unless there is a markedly significant difference in the turnout rate of their supporters.

[Wesley Stevenson]

And Tom Wolfe thinks that Mataiyang's analysis is just too simplistic.

[Dr. Tom Wolf]

Well, the first flaw is his assumption that every voter from a particular ethnic group will vote for that ethnic group's presidential candidate. That is not true. It could be 99%, it could be 89%, it could be whatever percent, but there is no reason to think that it's 100%.

[Wesley Stevenson]

What's more, Tom Wolf says that Mata Ngunyu made an error in his assumptions about the third place candidate. Moussalia Mundavadi, who's a Luya. Ngunyi has assumed that Mudavadi will have the support of all the luye. But. But Dr. Wolff says all three polling firms who've been gauging voter opinion show that the majority of the Louyas are supporting Raila Odinga.

[Ruth Alexander]

And actually, other evidence suggests that Kenyans haven't always voted along ethnic lines in past elections. An analysis done for the African Centre for Open Governance shows that while there is a strong link, there are occasions when this hasn't happened. In 1992, for example, the Louya split their vote between the two main candidates. And in 2002, the the Luo vote was split between a Luo and several non Luo candidates.

[Wesley Stevenson]

And there's reason to believe that this election. There are huge complications too. Uhura Kenyatta is relying on votes from both the Kikuyus, his tribe, and the Kalenjin, the tribe of his running mate. But there's no guarantee that these people will vote for him because of tensions between the two tribes who were involved in violent clashes after the elections in 2007.

[Ruth Alexander]

The picture in Kenya is far too complicated for this election to be described simply as some kind of ethnic census. And there's detail which challenges the view of the election as a tyranny of numbers. Even if everyone voted along ethnic lines, no one party could actually reach the 51% of the vote needed to win. Here's Tom Wolfe again from Ipsos Sinovut.

[Dr. Tom Wolf]

No single ethnic group in this country comprises more than about 22% of the population. And since the only way one can win a first round victory is by getting more than 50% of the vote plus one, you can see right away that no presidential campaign can hope to achieve victory without cross ethnic alliances. And since the second most populous group in Kenya is below 15%, we're really talking about an alliance that would have to have three or four ethnic groups in it if that alliance was going to restrict itself only on an ethnic basis to the top most populous groups. So I think victory cannot be achieved without that more Catholic approach to building across ethnic coalition. So rather than use the term tyranny of numbers, I would say Kenya rather exhibits a safety of numbers because it forces any potential presidential candidate to go far outside of his own or her own ethnic box or basket, as it were, in order to build a sufficiently large coalition to win.

[Ruth Alexander]

Dr. Tom Wolfe, and thanks to Wesley Stevenson, Pope Benedict XVI packed up his things and left the office for the last time this week. And you might have noticed a distinct lack of unexpected events in his carefully choreographed final service. But the same can't be said for the day the Pope announced his resignation. First, there was the surprise of his resignation. Then a few hours later, the dome of St. Peter's was struck by lightning. What were the chances of that? Several of you emailed more or lessbc.co.uk to ask as rumours of divine intervention swirled around the world, and. And we've asked the experts. There are all sorts of lightning bigwigs out there, so how surprised were they? Matthew Waldrom from Amiga Red Group, a company that protects buildings against lightning strike damage, thinks the basilica was kind of a sitting duck.

[Matthew Waldrom]

St Peter's Basilica, it's an extremely large structure, measuring some 220 by 150 metres, and it's 138 metres high. That, and the fact that it's not actually isolated, but it certainly towers over its surroundings, obviously increases the risk because of the amount of surface that it offers into the open air. It means that the risk of it being struck by lightning, if lightning activity is present, is increased by the very nature of its size and the fact that lightning is possibly more likely to hit it than any of the surrounding buildings.

[Ruth Alexander]

So it looks like the odds were stacked heavily towards St Peter's being struck by lightning at some point, but on the day the Pope resigned. Well, we've also been speaking to Graham Anderson, a lightning detection scientist working at the UK's Met Office, which tracks and forecasts the weather.

[Graham Anderson]

The records the Met Office keeps of lightning data is essentially the coordinates of the lightning strike and the time that the lightning strike occurred when it was picked up by our system. And that can then be used to create plots of lightning maps and also lightning density maps, so you can tell how many strokes occurred within a given region.

[Ruth Alexander]

So was he surprised that the basilica was struck on that day?

[Graham Anderson]

Looking at the thunderstorm activity from the start of this month, there seems to have been a lot more stormy activity in the area around Rome and the Vatican. So the fact there were storms in the area makes it more likely that one of those storms would pass over the top of the Vatican and makes it more likely that St. Peter's would be struck.

[Ruth Alexander]

So the experts aren't much amazed by the fact a prominent building was struck by lightning during a stormy season. And neither is the Vatican. Oh, come on. Of course, we checked with their press office and they told us they attributed no religious significance to the strike. If you have any numerical questions you'd like us to answer, do email more or lessbc.co.uk or if you want more information about the programme or to listen to previous episodes, you can go to our website, BBC.co.uk more or less.