With just five and a half months left to the general election, political aspirants and parties are flexing their muscles and doing all they can to woo voters.
The August 8 polls are expected to be the fiercest, as the Opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) aims at removing Jubilee Party from power.
While NASA is yet to make known its presidential flagbearer, Jubilee already has its arsenals charged, with President Uhuru Kenyatta leading the pack and seeking a second term in office.
Jubilee has come up with a strategy, which they believe will ensure they attain the required 50+1 per cent of votes cast, to beat NASA in the first round.
Uhuru’s party has zoned the country into its strongholds and regions likely to vote massively for the Raila Odinga led camp.
Jubilee, in a campaign strategy document, has also identified swing counties.
The party believes 17 counties in Central and Rift Valley as well as Upper Eastern are its strongholds, while 17 counties in Gusii region, Nairobi, Maasailand, North Eastern are Kenya’s swing vote areas.
Jubilee team has classified the following counties as NASA’s strongholds: Nyanza - Siaya, Kisumu, Homa Bay, and Migori.
Coast - Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi, Tana River, Lamu, Taita-Taveta, while in Kalonzo Musyoka’s Ukambani zone are Kitui, Machakos and Makueni.
In Western, the party has listed Kakamega, Vihiga, Bungoma, and Busia as pro Opposition.
“These county zones should be used to interpret voter registration figures. Core (NASA strongholds) and swing clusters have been allocated due to past voting patterns and tribal and clan demographics within particular counties,” reads the strategy document.
Uhuru and his deputy William Ruto traversed the country in a bid to mobilise Kenyans to register as voters, and most importantly, vote Jubilee.
In the 2013 general election, Jubilee Coalition’s Uhuru got 6,173,433 votes (50.51 per cent), while his arch-rival Raila garnered 5,340,546 votes (47.3 per cent).
Amani National Congress leader Musalia Mudavadi, who has since joined hands with Raila in the National Super Alliance, came third in the presidential race, with 483,981 votes (3.96 per cent).