Hope we learn something from US election contest

Over the past two weeks we have watched as the two major political parties in the US held their national conventions to nominate their presidential candidates. Looking at these events from outside the US, one cannot help but marvel at how different the two conventions were.

The Republicans appeared to hand over the mantle to an unreconstructed demagogue who has promised to keep immigrants out of the US and restrict interactions with members of certain religions.

Obviously one hopes that promises such as building a wall to keep pesky neighbours away are only campaign gimmicks and will not be actualised, but there is a real fear outside of the US that the Republican party platform this year is one of isolationism and intolerance.

Comparisons with the Democratic Party platform are unavoidable. Anyone watching the convention could not fail to see the depth of organisation and talent.

Former presidents and political heavyweights turned out to witness a literal changing of the guard, and to endorse the first American woman with a realistic chance of winning the US presidency.

The sitting president and his wife gave rousing speeches endorsing the party candidate, serving to energise a party base that was becoming disillusioned by the profusion of scandals on the political scene.

What lessons are there for us in Kenya to learn? Just like the US, Kenyans are deeply divided politically. Our politics has regressed to depend more and more on identity rather than policy or ideology.

We have finally distilled the very essence of our politics into what one scholar has baptised a ‘procreatocracy’, where politicians urge ‘their people’ to increase their numbers and get out and vote on election day in order to ‘protect the interests of the tribe’.

In this sense, we can liken our schism to that between the conservatives in American politics and the liberals. Our tribal tensions might mirror the troubled race relations in the US that have come to the fore with recent incidents of killings of policemen and black youth.

RESPECT DIVERSITY

But that, really, is where the similarities end. The political establishment in the US is cultured to respect diversity and call out bigotry. In our country, we will clap when a politician insults a section of the population based on their ethnic origin, religion, or even sexual preferences.

Despite the racial tensions in the US, one will still find members of all races holding all sorts of political opinions and not being labelled ‘traitors’ for this.

An important distinction, and a great lesson for our political class, is the manner in which transitions are managed in the US.

Nationwide contests are organised, state by state, to gauge the popularity of would-be candidates. These contests help the candidates to clarify their political messages and allow prospective voters to meet and interrogate the candidates.

At the end of the process, the party’s choice is often obvious and the endorsement at the convention is a mere formality. In Kenya, we are not even sure under which political party the ruling coalition will seek to renew their mandate, one year to the General Election.

It is therefore impossible to interrogate anything except the individual achievements of the leaders, which is always a difficult proposition devoid of certainty. Indeed, their main selling proposition for re-election is a plea to be allowed to finish the projects they have started, rather than any serious policy and programmatic changes.

Our opposition, if we can call it that, is a haven of personality cults. A coalition in this context is the temporary arrangement of convenience bringing together a group of politicians with presidential ambitions and their hangers-on whose political futures are bound up with those of their tribal chiefs.

In their minds, the campaign platform of the boss becomes their party anthem, and when the boss changes tune, so does the party. It is a sorry reenactment of King Louis XIV’s alleged retort to the French Parliament, “L’etat, c’est moi!” (I am the State!).

Only time will tell if we are learning anything from the Americans.

Atwoli is associate professor of psychiatry and dean, School of Medicine, Moi University; [email protected]