OMWENGA: Who wins in a run-off election for 2027?

Most people would agree that if elections were held this year, or even next year, our current president would join a club of presidents who failed to win a second term in Africa – or anywhere else, for that matter. It’s a special club no president wants to join, but those who have joined either did or did not do what opened the door for their membership.

A common denominator for those in this special club is mass disappointment among the electorate, driven by Presidents’ incompetence and lack of leadership.

When trying to make Democratic President Jimmy Carter Wantam in 1980, Republican nominee Ronald Reagan posed the question to voters, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Reagan posed this question when Carter was making some gains in depicting Reagan as an extreme conservative whose only interest was to cater to the rich and not the average voter.

Carter’s argument was a good one, but the majority of voters answered the question in the negative and voted for Reagan, giving him a landslide victory that transformed American politics. He was only outdone by another Republican who decades later is still busy transforming the country – for the worse, according to many critics, while others hold the contrary view.

There is little or no doubt if you ask Kenyans today whether they are they better off than they were in 2022, the vast majority will answer in the negative, just as the Americans did when Reagan asked this simple question. The simple answer helped propel him to the presidency and into history.

The question is whether Kenyans would give the same answer if the question were asked on Election Day 2027? Of course, only God knows.

What we the mortals know is that it would take a miracle for President William Ruto to do two things simultaneously in less than two years: to divide the opposition, which he is trying fiercely to do and to undo what he has done or not done since he became head of state to cause the current resentment or rejection.

At best, what the President may likely do is succeed in the former, meaning divide the opposition, but it’s doubtful he’ll ever reverse the latter – at least in any way that can reverse the tide against him and his policies. They have done nothing but keep Kenyans suffering even more than when he took office.

Should the President succeed in dividing the opposition, or should the opposition itself fail to remain united and front one candidate, then it is very likely we’ll have a runoff for the first time in our country’s history.

To be sure, we were supposed to and should have had a runoff in 2013 but, as I have previously argued, that became unnecessary for reasons there is no need to get into.

Every indication is that we are headed to a runoff election in 2027. Put another way, we will avoid a runoff only if the opposition remains united and fronts one candidate to take on the current president.

Which brings up another question: who wins in a runoff should there be one?

The question presupposes – and it’s a correct presupposition that there will be at least three serious candidates in the ballot. Analytically, it matters not whether it’s three or 10 candidates on the ballot. The key is in a scenario where there are at least three candidates, with two being strong and a third being relatively weak but good for denying either of the strong candidates wins. Constitutionally, victory requires 50 per cent plus one and 25 per cent of the majority of the counties. In that scenario, we shall have a runoff.

You already know who the top two vote getters will be. What makes the 2027 election fascinating is that there is one candidate who is well positioned to win in the runoff – if he doesn’t win outright in round one - whether or not the third vote getter supports him. And that’s none other than former Interior CS Fred Matiang’i.