Elite greed eating up Kenya’s key institutions

The ongoing cannibalisation of the Judiciary has exposed the Kenyan elite for what they really are. Creepy and ruthless, their collective greed won’t spare anything that appears to stand in their way to power and control.

Winners take all, while losers often resort to a cynical scorched earth policy, destroying as much as they can behind them.

For instance, a retiring public official, suddenly confronted with the reality of his underwhelming performance and waning influence, soon takes to authoring chaos and lighting fires all over to try to go down with the institution he leads, as rival vultures hover above.

It is a testament to this unbridled elite greed that Kenya is forever on a costly rebuilding mode – reforming or reconstituting this or other institution.

In the coming months, the country will be subjected to another round of ritual changes in key institutions, all inspired by elite interests in next year’s General Election.

CURRENT CRISIS

Indeed it is difficult to tell how much of the current crisis at the Supreme Court is down to corruption allegations and how much can be linked to elite scheming to capture and control it for electoral advantages.

Suffice is to say that with the role the Supreme Court played in deciding the 2013 presidential election outcome, it effectively became an elite battleground and every judge there was marked as a person of interest.

In the estimation of politicians and other players in the high-stakes power games, the electoral value of the highest court in the land has probably shot up higher than that of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).

Notably, the Ahmed Issack Hassan-led polls body has recently been afforded quite some breathing space, with even its erstwhile critics in the Opposition toning down their quit calls.

You can still put your money on the IEBC undergoing reform in some form or shape before the 2017 polls depending on what value the politicians still attach to it.

STOP-START REFORMS

Proponents of these stop-start reforms will argue that they are necessary to ensure free and fair elections. That notion is flawed if you consider that no recent election has gone without claims of rigging.

Bipartisan political support for the reforms also tends to evaporate as soon as the presidential winner is declared, suggesting they are not sustainable.

But the problem is less the reforms per se and more the role of the elite.

A majority of them, whether from the political class, civil society or power brokerages, simply come to the reform table to feed their greed and couldn’t care less about building strong institutions.

The Judiciary and the IEBC are the products of recent elite shoddy handiwork.

Built on elite consensus alone, they have always been at risk of crumbling – eaten up by collective greed or brought down by groups that feel shortchanged.

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