To poll winners, let’s now build a nation

The voters around the country on Tuesday came out in full force to choose the leaders who will govern the country in the coming five years of their new social contract.

The universal truth is that an election is a sort of a competition and as is the nature of any such a contest, there must be winners and losers.

But what makes elections such a dicey affair in some parts of Africa, and specifically Kenya, is the endemic distrust among the various ethnic groups and clans.

These recurrent tensions are always followed by excessive appeals for peace and the credibility of national elections, which just mask the deep-seated ethnic schisms and suspicions that actually define the politics that is practised in our part of the world.

It is a matter of fact that unlike in the developed world, where politics is purely about ideologies and policies, Kenya’s and Africa’s political culture is mainly derived from the old traditional African clan and tribal customs.

SOCIAL UNITS

However, unlike our past elders who dealt with politics and power in a more altruistic and inclusive way, our current politicians misuse the two social units as the selfish instruments of getting to power or causing havoc when one bids and fails to secure it.

In fact, the perception is that if your tribe or clan wins, then you have also won politically and economically although the reality on the ground shows that its only the elites that often reap most of the benefit from power.

To those clans and tribes that are defeated in elections, shame and worries about discrimination and victimisation are also an indoctrination by their own elites that leads to defensive measures, which are sometimes violent.

During the lengthy election campaign period that officially ended on Saturday evening, some of the candidates were behaving as if they were clan and ethnic chiefs.

CANDIDATES

The messaging of their campaigns was more of an “us versus them” narrative rather than communicating a substantive vision and a target-based action plan to the voters.

In my own county, Garissa, in the northeastern region, we have recently witnessed the political unity of two clans against one, and some of the candidates who were anointed by the local elites in conjunction with some elders were chosen simply because they are the ones who have the resources  to “teach the other clan a lesson”, yet the other clan that they are talking about shares with them a larger ancestry.

The irony is that the mothers of some of elites even belong to that clan they are attempting to work against.

Some political pundits in media outlets have also fallen prey to discussing politics using ethnic lenses rather than exhaustively interrogating the quality of leadership and the visions of the various candidates.

This retrograde political culture has made many Kenyans to not even celebrate the recent admission of the Makonde and Hindu communities into Kenyan society as new tribes simply because rather than our leaders building a national character and values, they are focusing on building ethnic blocs as potential political zones.

ETHNICITY

South Sudan can teach us how dangerous the politics of ethnicity can be. Before attaining independence after the 2011 referendum, South Sudan was part of Sudan or North Sudan, under President Omar Al-Bashir.

But what happened is that the predominantly Christian South fought against the Arab and Muslims in the North for decades using the narrative of “us versus them “ to an extent that they finally chose secession as a remedy.

But when they established their own country, the elites who had been fanning an “us versus them” conflict began a narrower version of the conflict, which is clan-based due to hunger for power and public resources, turning South Sudan into killing fields.

Today, South Sudan is a pale shadow of its former self as an infant democracy, and confirms the sagely view of India’s great moral leader Mahatma Gandhi, who observed that “the world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not everyone’s greed”.

The winners in this election should extricate Kenya from this political incubus of clannism and tribalism that is bedevilling our society, by building consensus on important issues and ensuring inclusion of all in government.

 Mr Mohamed is a Nation correspondent in Garissa Town. [email protected]