I finally finished the deep-dive of last week and redid the party and ethnic analysis for all 289 constituency MPs elected on 8 August 2017 (see previous blog posts). I then compared the results against the 2009 Kenya census population figures by reported ethnicity.

The resulting figure shows both how each community split between the two main alliances, and how well those communities did in the 2010 constituency boundary redefinition and in winning elections in the growing number of multi-ethnic constituencies in the country.

The results are shown here:

For clarity, I have coloured all the pro-Jubilee teams blue and all the pro-NASA teams orange. There were a very few MPs who campaigned as genuinely independent or refused to declare publicly who they backed, saying "party politics had no place" in their seat, mainly in the Gusii and Kamba. They are coloured grey.

What we can see from this picture is:

1. Most larger communities plumped hard for one team or the other, and as a result, their parliamentary parties show the same pattern. Every single Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, Mbeere and Tharaka MP is in Jubilee (or was a pro-Jubilee post-primary defector) and every single Luo or Basuba MP is in NASA (or  was a post-ODM primary independent). Ethnicity and party preference are completely aligned in an uncomfortably close way in these communities.

2. It was striking how well the Kalenjin community did in terms of constituency representation in their homelands, and in winning seats in the multi-ethnic rift (and even one seat in Nairobi). The Oromo-speaking communities can clearly be seen to have been allocated more constituencies than their population would strictly require, because of their vast size and district historical identities. The Kikuyu community are almost exactly "right" (17.3% of elected MPs with 17.2% of the 2009 population), while the Luhya, Luo, Kamba, Gusii and Meru all ended up slightly "under-represented" in the current lower house amongst elected constituency MPs. 

The elected Women Representatives will - when added - follow a similar pattern, but because of their allocation by counties they will further strengthen the over representation of the semi-arid historically pastoral communities.

(As always, this work has been done without reward or partisan objective, but purely to encourage informed discussion)

For comparison to my previous post on Jubilee, I now report out on a second analysis of the ethnic background of the 62 elected ODM constituency MPs. This excludes (for now) members elected under other parties (Wiper, ANC, FORD-Kenya, CCM etc.), minor pro-Raila parties (KNC, CCU) and pro-Raila independents. It also excludes (so far) the ODM Women’s Representatives and the ODM nominated MPs.

As you would expect, the Luo (and linked Abasuba) community dominate ODM’s ranks, making up 44% of elected constituency MPs, with the Luhya and Mijikenda joint second, both with 10 MPs (16% each). The circa 40 other ethnic communities currently identified as such made up the remaining 24%.

ODM has no Kikuyu, Embu, Mbeere, Meru or Tharaka MPs, and also no Kalenjin, Kamba, Oromo (Borana, Gabbra, Orma) or Kuria. Layering on the MPs from the other three remaining “NASA” parties (Wiper, ANC and FORD-Kenya) that picture would change significantly.

There was one MPs whose ethnicity was unclear to me, Bady Twalib in Jomvu in Mombasa. He could be Swahili/Shirazi, Arab or even (much less likely) Mijikenda. Comments and corrections always welcome.

I was wondering to myself (following a recent related question from a friend about where Jubilee MPs might stand on the Ruto succession) what the ethnic composition of the current crop of elected Jubilee MPs in fact might be.

This is the answer, looking only (for now) at elected constituency MPs who were formally Jubilee candidates, and excluding so far fellow-traveller independents, KANU MPs, all the elected Women’s Representatives and party nominees.

As expected, the results follow the ethnic lines of support nationwide, with numbers driven by community voting preferences and the number of constituencies allocated to each region of the country (itself driven very roughly by the population of the Counties according to the 2009 census, shown for comparison).

 My records suggest that Kikuyu, Embu, Mbeere, Meru and Tharaka MPs make up 59 of the 140 elected Jubilee MPs (42%), Kalenjin MPs (26%), with all the other communities in the country the remaining 32%. Amongst predominantly opposition-supporting communities, Jubilee had elected Luhya, Kamba, Mijikenda and Gusii MPs but no Luo, Basuba, Taita or Teso.

The unknowns for me are the Lamu East MP Shariff Athman Ali (who I have provisionally placed as Swahili or Barawa) and Ali Amin Deddy in Laikipia East, a Moslem MP representing a mixed but Kikuyu-dominated seat, about whom I know nothing. Queries and corrections welcome as ever.