THE MATH BEHIND A POLITICAL RALLY

How much does it cost to hold a political rally in Kenya. It can be looked at in different perspectives depending on the influence of the politicians and the intended gains from the rally. A political rally two years after an election will cost far less than one two years before an elections. In this calculations, the latest political rallies by PNU wing are case examples and particularly two rallies, the Murang'a rally and the Uhuru Park rally.

Now, for the deputy premier, he enjoys massive support in central thus quite little is spent than in the much cosmopolitan Nairobi. In Murang'a two weeks ago, a massive rally was witnessed in Ihura stadium, the venue of crowning UK king of central. It is however quite funny that despite the support he enjoys from that place, hundreds of people were ferried to the venue from different parts of the country. An average of 100 fourteen seater matatus were used for that job. It is worth noting that 100 is an approximation and the number could be much higher but according to accounts of Muranga residents, it can't be any lower. Surprising is that some of those matatus made more than one trip. Now, lets work with a hundred, assuming that each was been paid sh 5000, That is without much mathematical involvement half a million shillings on the matatus alone.

Working closely with the 14 seaters, were the larger 50-60 seater buses. About 10 were used and assuming each takes home sh 20,000 per day, they all take home sh 200,000 collectively. Both the matatus and the buses take home at least Sh. 700,000.

Now the more complicated part, every ferried soul has to be paid. With the calculations above, at least 2000 persons were ferried by both the matatus and the buses, i.e. 1400 for the matatus and 600 for the buses. Working with a downrated price of Sh 500 for a soul, that adds up to Sh 1,000,000. This amount is very much downrated and can easily be double or even triple since the ferried people could be much more, and some are not necessarily ferried but are paid to bring themselves.

Come to the miscellanous, the committee organising the people's attendance in the grassroot needs to be paid, the tents, if any need to be paid for, the stadium itself is paid for, the public address is hired, the roadshow truck is hired, the posters and placards are paid for plus a host of other undocumented items including the mineral water lying idle on their tables. All this will take at least another Sh1,000,000 with the bulk to the grassroot organising secretary who by the way are village men and women who are not going to let all that money pass them and leave them in full.

Sh 1,000,000 for the ferried crowd, Sh 700,000 for the ferries and Sh 1,000,000 for miscellaneous. That adds up to Sh 2,700,000. Lets make it 3,000,000 since I have not included the tens of boda bodas that form the outriders of the convoy. Believe me the amount is much higher considering the money that ends up in the wrong hands during all this process.

Those were the figures of Murang'a town. Now lets come to the capital, Nairobi. Stakes are very high here and the strongest show of might must be displayed. You will expect the number of those ferried to be multiple times that of Murang'a. Lets put it at x seven. Definitely, every thing else will be much higher and will probably be multiplied by seven. Please note that seven is a random number but is realistic considering crowds in the two venues. The 3 million shillings for Murang'a will round off to over Sh 20,000,000 in Nairobi.

You will note that we are only one year to the elections and the price is higher than it was last year. Next year we should expect the money used in a rally to be much higher.