Our own version of democracy? No way

I wish to return to a theme I was trying to address last weekend and which I have tried to allude to over several years.

What do we need to do and how long should it take for our democratic thinking and behaviour to attain internationally accepted standards?

Recently we saw the English people go through a transition between leaders following the results of a referendum – not a General Election.

This past week, the new British Prime Minister has been going about her business, including visits to other European countries.

Here at home, we are faced with challenges that, in my view, derail the way we should be going towards becoming a true democracy.

We keep talking about being democratic particularly after we achieved the multiparty governance system following a long period of dictatorship.

The real question is whether our country is truly democratic. Kenyans must ask themselves serious questions if only to determine which way our country is going.

We must ask ourselves whether we have to keep pretending that we can introduce our own version of democracy yet the concept and the practice of it was invented by other people from other places. Why don’t we accept that and just move on?

MOBILISE TRIBAL FOLLOWERS

Watching our politicians at play, I have come to conclude that what many of them do is all about themselves and not about fellow Kenyans.

It is to these political types that we have entrusted the work of setting up our own model of Kenyan democracy if there is any such thing. Isn’t democracy a universal concept?

While we are at what we do best – fighting over political parties, trying to outdo each other as to who will be leader, trying to mobilise tribal followers towards election time – the world moves on.

A major international conference has just ended here in our capital. I wonder how many Kenyans took note of the international event and its implications.

What I seem to have noticed is that, as has always been the case, there were a few differences between delegates from the developed world and those from our world.

If our political leaders are forever taken up by thinking about who will win the next elections then we, as a “democratic country”, are in trouble.
Who will deal with those issues coming from out there?

Can our leaders really set the agenda? Fr Wamugunda is dean of students, University of Nairobi; [email protected]