Our hard fought democratic space is shrinking while we are busy cheering

There is the old story of the boiling frog. Basically, it goes that if you boil water and then put a frog in it, it will leap out hurriedly.

But if you put it in cold water and then slowly boil it, it will keep adjusting to the heat and it will be too late by the time it realises it is in boiling water.

Scientists have debunked this story as a myth. But metaphorically, it has resonance when dealing with human rights and shrinking space. Often regimes that want to increase the power of the Executive, reduce human rights, and engage in corruption understand that sudden negative measures attract serious hostility as former President Yanukovich of Ukraine recently found out.

Thus they adopt the “slow boil” approach of one measure after another, so that citizens can get used to the shrinking space and adjust accordingly.

This seems to be what the co-principals, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, are consciously doing with us. Slowly but surely, the hard fought democratic space is shrinking, as we look by and adjust accordingly. And the inverse of this shrinking space is the return of the Imperial Presidency.

An Imperial Presidency demands that there be no opposition. But because it is impossible in this age to return to the traditional one party state, the logic of the Imperial Presidency is to have neutered opposition political parties that do not challenge Executive power.

And so it is with our present political opposition especially inside Parliament. Engineered by Jubilee’s Aden Duale, opposition members joined the bandwagon of openly ripping off taxpayers’ as they claimed extraordinary high salaries, losing the high moral ground that they would otherwise have occupied, making it difficult for them to play the traditional role of protector of the public interest and democratic space.

DECLARED "SUBVERSIVE"

And now they have been manipulated into a childish supremacy battle between MPs, Senators and Governors, whose only beneficiary is the Presidency that looks mature and above these petty games.

It is in this context that we need to see the populist — but ineffective — decision to reduce the salaries of the co-principals by 20 per cent. Ineffective because with all the perks of office that Paul Mwangi outlined in last week’s Sunday Nation, these cuts will not make a difference in the lifestyle — or taxpayers’ costs — of the Executive.

In order to garner popular support for the impending Imperial Presidency, why not engage in a meaningless but popular symbolic gesture?

And then there is the onslaught against the Judiciary, which has lost a lot of its allure, despite the best efforts by some judges of Appeal and the High Court.

The audacity in declaring that Parliament would not obey “stupid” court orders only benefits the Executive which already treats the Constitution with contempt as we see with the blatant efforts to “ban” peaceful protests despite Article 37 of the Constitution.

Weakening independent media is also a tried and tested tactic on the road to an Imperial Presidency. There are the draconian laws recently passed designed to intimidate those in the media who refuse to toe the line.

But most shocking has been the return of tactics that were consigned to the dustbin of history with the new Constitution.

Last week, my colleague at InformAction was unconstitutionally declared “subversive” by the Internal Security Cabinet Secretary (by a letter dated October 2013 and only produced in response to a court challenge), a phrase last used during the one-party state! Her crime? Making documentary films and screening them across Kenya on human rights, social justice and impunity.

The hallmark of an Imperial Presidency — best exemplified by Daniel arap Moi — is the use of vague labels such as subversion to silence independent and critical thought.

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