It is a fact that PNU struggled to fill the 40,000 capacity Nyayo Stadium during President Kibaki’s presidential campaign launch just over 2 weeks ago. Some of the gymnastics that the party had to go through included helping to finance national delegates conferences for affiliate parties which were organized at about the same time so as to avoid at all costs the Stadium being embarrassingly empty.
So the big mystery that almost every Kenyan on the street is talking about is how the 8% party managed to attract such a mammoth crowd to Uhuru Park.
All sorts of rumours are flying;
One rumour cl;aims that Machakos is very close to Nairobi and so every Mkamba to the last man was transported to Uhuru Park for the rally. The guys spreading this rumour claiom that the faces seen at Uhuru Park on Sunday all looked like they were from one community. And most were saying “Hoo Ndii Emm Woyee!”
Yet another rumour says that Sunday was chosen specifically so that church congregations could be commandeered to turn up at Uhuru Park.”
When all is said and done, it is not very easy to fool this political analyst with large crowds. I remember vividly the crowd that escorted Charity Ngilu to hand over her nomination papers to the electoral commission of Kenya in 1997. Just looking at it you would have quickly declared that Mrs Ngilu had already won. A sharp contrast to candidate Mwai Kibaki who handed over his papers and left quietly with a an aide or two. Ion fact on his way out he bumped into another candidate, no less than the incumbent President Moi himself who had also been on a similar mission to county hall. The two men unaccompanied by supporters greeted each other and parted ways. Well, those were the two guys who came first and second in those elections.
So the crowd at Uhuru park was above everything else a political gimmick. One thing about Hoo Ndii Emm is that fact that they are the most organized of the three political parties. Just carefully look at how they do their things. Somebody suggested to me that if PNU contionue campaigning the way they are, they could easily find their presidential candidate coming in third behind Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka. This may be a far-fetched dream but I can’t help but consider it when the PNU continues to campaign as if the people who are going to vote are retarded idiots.
