Shortly after the Kenyan election results started trickling in there was a quick realization of who the front runners were and which candidates would certainly not be victorious despite all the hype in social media circles.
It was not long before presidential hopeful Peter Kenneth conceded defeat to the congratulations of many, who called him a true patriot.
Later that evening a post on Facebook suggested Kenneth would surely remain president of Facebook, despite his overall tally of votes, having amassed far more Facebook likes than over half the presidential contenders. His 205,000 followers far outshined Raila Odinga’s 122,800 followers or Musalia Mudavadi’s 33,000, though both beat him in terms of votes.
By Facebook following Kenneth is just behind Martha Karua and Uhuru Kenyatta, with 242,340 and 449,885 followers respectively.
The case of Peter Kenneth can be replicated with Martha Karua, who garnered just 43,881 votes, far less than the number of people who liked her on Facebook.
These shocking realisations spur debate as to whether popularity on social media has any correlation to real votes on the ground.
Judging by this one scenario someone would be quickly swayed to think it does not. However, the candidate with the largest followings on Facebook and Twitter emerged the winner. Uhuru Kenyatta garnered 6.17 million votes, compared to a combined social media following of 571,870, making his votes more than ten-fold his social media following.
This huge discrepancy drives several conclusions:
Quite evidently virtual votes do not translate to real votes. In Peter Kenneth’s and Martha Karua’s cases they might have attracted the following of an international population or perhaps individuals who failed to vote. In that case the virtual voters lacked the power to determine the outcome.
Social media numbers hold some truth. But Karua’s and Kenneth’s strategists might have mistaken popularity for acceptance. This point is the clear definition between ‘like’ and ‘want’.
However, the result could have been shaped by mentions in the online space.
According to statistics the online community in the runup to the elections mentioned three presidential candidates the most, starting with Abduba Dida followed by Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga.
There is a correlation here between these statistics and the actual voting patterns, except when it comes to Dida, who was a distant fifth in the election. But truth be told not a single Kenyan had expected Dida to perform that well, perhaps not even Abduba Duba himself.
Comparing the statistics to the US elections there was a lot in common. Obama who eventually retained the presidency, also had the most mentions, with his name trending more compared to his rival.
No matter how much the online community remains unreliable when predicting the outcome of elections, the same community cannot be ignored, especially looking forward to a generation that will spend more time online than offline.
