The Influence Of Political Party Marketing On Electoral Outcome In Kenya: A Case Study Of Nairobi City County

Abstract

Elections have been the main mechanism through which contemporary representative democracy has operated, and leaders anywhere tend to use the popular vote to accomplish a standard of political legitimacy. But to get this legitimacy, leaders first have to go through a process of intense political mobilization and lobbying with an aim of marketing themselves and their parties. This study sought to establish the influence of political party marketing on electoral outcome in Nairobi City County with a keen focus on Lang’ata and Makadara constituencies. The study adopted the mobilization theory and used a descriptive research design. The population of the study consisted of voters, party officials, and campaign managers of members of parliament. A questionnaire was employed as a data collection instrument where 96 respondents were interviewed. The data collected was coded and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 23.0). The analysis revealed three things, a) voters, especially the young ones, are more inclined to vote for politicians or political parties that carried out extensive political party advertising in the period leading to the general election. b) there is a positive and statistically significant correlation between the political campaign budgets and the electoral outcome. c) political rallies play a big role in swaying voters more so the undecided ones and the more you have these rallies the better. The study concluded that even though the influence of political party marketing is difficult to scientifically quantify, at least one set of regular political rallies, party advertising, and higher campaign budget usually have a measurable effect on electoral outcome. The study recommends that more scientific studies should be done to determine the actual and the longevity of the effect.