Examining Discoursal Strategies used in the Presidential Candidates' Manifestos in the 2022 General Election in Kenya

This paper interrogates the discoursal strategies used in the campaign manifestos of the presidential candidates during the 2022 general election in Kenya. While campaign manifestos are critical strategies through which candidates articulate their visions to persuade the electorate, studies on Kenyan elections have rarely examined how these texts utilize language to construct ideology, identity, and authority. Data were drawn from the four presidential manifestos used in the 2022 general election and collected through content analysis and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). The analysis was guided by the principles of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which examines how language is used to enact, reproduce, and resist power abuse, dominance, and social inequality. A descriptive research design was applied to interpret the manifesto texts. The results revealed the prevalent use of the following discoursal strategies; multi-textual levels of persuasive discourse, deliberate word choices, metaphors, symbolism, and syntactic communicative units. These strategies were often deployed not only to construct political identities but also establish authority, critique opponents, and persuade voters. This study contributes to political discourse research by offering an in-depth account of how discoursal strategies function in Kenyan presidential manifestos and by demonstrating how CDA can uncover hidden dimensions of power, ideology, and voter manipulation in electoral communication.