In an election that had no specific selling point or agenda, the two leading candidates, President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, fought for survival in a race of 4 “Ps” – promises, personality, party, and policy, in that order. Both ran frenzied campaigns and electrified their supporters with facts, slogans, music, lies, half-truths and fake news. For his part, President Kenyatta’s campaign secretariat dished out hundreds of thousands of banners and T-shirts and run perhaps the best-branded presidential campaign in Kenya’s history. President Kenyatta was backed by his Deputy President William Ruto, who is aiming to vie for the seat in 2022 and was thus fighting to save his place as successor to the throne with a Kenyatta victory. During the solo presidential debate attended by Mr Odinga, and boycotted by Mr Kenyatta, the Nasa presidential aspirant said the spiralling debts have put the country towards economic ruin.

Source: Daily Nation August 08, 2017 21:22 UTC