Church and business our best hope for consensus before polls

If you asked me to name the most critical economic problem and risk this country faces in the medium term, I would say uncertainty surrounding the General Election.

It is regrettable indeed that the debate about whether or not to do away with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) before the next elections has degenerated into a tit for tat between the Cord and Jubilee elite.

Truth be told, politicians are more interested in the short-term prospects of their parties than the long-term future of Kenya. Your typical Kenyan politician is a self-centred individual whose mind is glued to his own political prospects and who shamelessly looks at the rest of us as mere vote banks, not fellow citizens entitled to disinterested guidance.

Wherever I go today, whether it is the diplomatic party circuit, meetings organised by associations of foreign investors, or in a discussion with non-partisan private sector or religious groups, two issues pop out as urgent concerns about the coming elections: the IEBC and the Willy Mutunga succession at the Judiciary.

These two issues dominated discussion at a meeting I attended the other day that was organised by members of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa), who are running a peace programme christened Mkenya Daima. As we all know, Kepsa is one of the foremost private sector lobby groups and the umbrella covering most business associations in this country.

CRITICAL TRANSITION

Indeed, both the influential House of Catholic Bishops and the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) have also put out statements warning about the risk of going into an election with a referee whose credibility has been questioned by a wide section of the society and a Judiciary facing uncertainty over a critical transition.

In my view, the street demonstrations by Cord were distractions that will only serve to complicate the search for a national consensus on the two critical issues casting a shadow over peaceful elections next year.

This is pre-eminently a time for deep national introspection during which we must be self-critical enough to face the truth. In my view, all Kenyans of goodwill — from both sides of the political divide — must now come together to debate how we can mitigate the risks to peaceful elections next year.

Going by their mindsets and actions, it is clear that it will take a long time before politicians embrace the principle of acceptance of electoral defeat. Therefore, we should not make things worse by going into an election with an IEBC whose ability to be even-handedness is in doubt even before the game starts — and at a time when the leadership of the Supreme Court is in a state of flux.

WIDESPREAD VIOLENCE

Kenya must shed the image of a country that must experience widespread violence every time it holds a general election. Indeed, this negative image has caused untold damage to our economy and our standing as East Africa’s oldest democracy.

I believe that part of the reason Uganda was reluctant to allow its crude oil pipeline to pass through Kenya is its experience during the post-election violence of 2007/2008, when both Kampala and Kigali were unable to receive critical supplies through western Kenya.

We must reclaim our place as the first country in the region to successfully conduct multiparty elections. This begs the question: Who will lead the process of galvanising a national consensus on the two critical issues casting a shadow on peaceful elections next year?

Admittedly, our society has become so polarised that we neither have what you can call a middle ground nor a group you can call popular moderates. We do not have statesmen in this country.

I see the Church and the private sector coming in forcefully to re-assert themselves as honest brokers between factions of self-absorbed political elite.

I hope that the statements that the Catholic bishops and the NCCK put out the other day were the first salvo to signal the return of political activism by the Church and the private sector. We must go back to the project of reforming the dysfunctional political system.

Kenya politics remain a winner-take-all game where the victors control both power and wealth and the losers get nothing.

We all thought that the 2010 Constitution would sort this out. It did not. A statement made by eminent Indian jurist Nani Phalkivala in a booklet I read several years ago comes to mind. He wrote: “National integration is born in the hearts of its citizens. When it dies there, no army, no government, no constitution, can save it.”

[email protected]