The campaign season enters its last leg this weekend as Kenyans go to the polls on Monday to vote for their leaders.
In the past few months, Kenyans have watched candidates use all their financial might, with no expense spared, to woo voters in what has been the biggest and flashiest campaigns yet.
The 2013 election season will be remembered as the most expensive in history as it came with more elective posts on the ballot papers and candidates investing much more to win voters to their side.
The money spent during the campaigns did not only stay at the top, but trickled down to local traders who got the chance to sell their wares to thousands of buyers whenever the candidates held a rally with thousands in attendance. The bulk of the money went into travel, operations, events, media adverts and merchandise.
From helicopters to fixed wing aeroplanes, hundreds of branded vehicles, campaign materials and media campaigns, presidential candidates and their parties have gone all out.
It is estimated that the four main coalitions – Amani, Cord, Eagle and Jubilee – are spending as much as Sh10 million every day to hire helicopters for their campaigns, according to figures obtained from players in the aviation industry.
Jubilee Alliance, led by Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto, has six helicopters and four fixed wing aeroplanes on its campaign trail. The Raila Odinga-led Cord Coalition has four helicopters and two fixed wing aeroplanes.
The Musalia Mudavadi-led Amani Coalition also has five helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft, while the Eagle Coalition, whose presidential candidate is Peter Kenneth, has one helicopter.
The cost of hiring a chopper ranges from $1,500 (Sh130,500) to $2,000 (Sh174,000) per hour, depending on the organisation.
ALS Limited, based at Wilson Airport with a fleet of 23 both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters, charges about $1,700 (Sh147,900) per hour for its helicopters, with the minimum time one can pay for being two hours.
The local company has reaped big from the political season with three of its choppers, being hired out to the Jubilee Coalition. The choppers, which are branded by the coalition, have been hired from January 5th until next week.
It costs about $2,200 (Sh191,400) to hire a five seater aircraft per hour, excluding Value Added Tax, according to Phoenix Aviation Ltd Chief Pilot Helicopter Operations Christopher Stewart as quoted in our sister publication the Daily Nation.
The chief executive of Kenya Association of Air Operators, Mr Eutychus Waithaka, says some of the helicopters being used are personally owned by the politicians while others have been leased from operators and branded for the during of hire.
He added that the cost depends on the agreement reached with the company that owns the aircraft as there are no fixed rates in the market.
The parties have also invested heavily on road transport. The two big coalitions Cord and Jubilee have dispatched hundreds of branded four-wheel vehicles to the counties including Land Rovers, Toyota Land Cruisers and Pick-ups.
Cord has over 100 branded vehicles while Jubilee has 1,000.
The money on transport is only one component of their expenditure with parties and individual candidates investing heavily, in other areas including media.
Staring from the beginning of the year, there has been an explosion of advertising, especially in mainstream media.
Considering that a one minute advert on Prime time TV slot costs Sh318,600 for a one-minute slot, while a radio advert goes for Sh45,000 for a 45 second spot, all excluding tax, you can imagine how much the parties have paid for presidential candidates’ adverts which became more frequent in this last week.
According to research by Ipsos Synovate Kenya, the Jubilee Coalition has been the highest media spender followed by the Cord Coalition during this election period.
By the end of last year, the Jubilee Coalition had spent Sh40.66 million compared to Cord’s Sh23.29 million. Eagle had spent Sh4.58 million, Amani Sh1.47 million with other parties combined having spent about Sh10 million.
It costs up to Sh615,000 to put a full page political advert in the local newspapers. Presidential candidates and their running mates as well as governors have in the past couple of weeks taken up strategic billboards across the country.
It costs an average of Sh140,000 for each billboard, per month, according to industry sources.
The money has mainly been sourced from personal wealth, donations from supporters, party nomination fees and levies, party membership fees as well as party and presidential candidates’ fundraisers.
Candidates have been holding fundraisers the past two months to build their campaign kitty. Local restaurants and hotels have been the beneficiaries of these fundraisers, both in the city and country level.
Peter Waweru, Sarova Group’s marketing manager, said Panafric’s food and beverage department has gained from the fundraising events, rooms being hired for strategic and general meetings.
“Every day in the past few weeks, we have had an event or two,” he said. Most of the fundraisers were in the form of dinners whose cost ranges from Sh2,500 to Sh3,500 per person.
Kenyatta International Conference Centre has also been a beneficiary of the high spending with political parties hiring out rooms to launch their parties or unveil manifestos.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) have also used the venue during this period.
It costs Sh300,000 per day, excluding tax, to hire out the biggest hall, Tsavo, with a capacity of 4,000 people and Sh168,900 for the amphitheater which seats 800 people.
Candidates seeking different elective positions have reached out to their supporters through social network, the media and door-to-door campaigns for donations paid through mobile money and other forms of payment.
The parties also raised funds during nomination with the various parties bagging millions of shillings from candidates who vied for different positions on their tickets.
Even little-known parties reaped big when those who failed to get nomination from the bigger parties turned to them for help.
A monitoring report on campaign finance in the 2007 general elections by the Coalition for Accountable Political Financing (CAPF) estimated that close to $75 million (Sh6.5 billion) was spent by the main presidential contenders, Raila Odinga and President Mwai Kibaki.
Political parties raised nearly $56 million (Sh4.8 billion) for the campaigns from nomination fees among other sources.
Spending has, however, not been limited to political parties only, non-profit organizations and corporates were the driving forces behind the record-setting figures.
Media houses forked out Sh100 million to run the two presidential debates in a bid to give the candidates a platform to articulate their policies. Several government departments, non profit organisations and corporates put their resources in promoting peace campaigns ahead of the elections on Monday.
The drive, which has seen millions being spent on this campaign is aimed at countering electoral violence-related losses that left businesses with a bill of Sh10 billion countrywide a loss of over 4,000 jobs following the last elections which were followed by violence never before seen in the country.
“Our aim is to foster harmony among Kenyans,” said Crown Paints Kenya chief executive Rakesh Rao, in an earlier interview.
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