Let us play politics that’ll earn us respect of the world

Let us not deny it. We have been in political campaigns since the end of the last General Election.

The only difference is that the date of actual elections in August is drawing near.

This will mean political activities will gradually be accelerated and, sooner than later, they will grow into a noisy crescendo.

DEMOCRACY

Nominations — with all the flaws — have now been concluded save for a few court cases waiting to be determined, new and not-so-new alliances have been formed, regions are being demarcated along the lines of whether they are pro-opposition or pro-Jubilee and so on.

A lot of this confusion is disheartening at times but when one gives it a serious thought there is something positive that has happened over time.

World democracies we sometimes admire and even try to emulate such as America are more than 200 years old.

DICTATORSHIP

They must have gone through their fair share of confusion during their formative years to get to where they are.

Our nation — not to mention democracy — came into being just 54 years ago.

Of those 54, only the last 25 years or so can be counted as the period we have tried to put democratic institutions in place.

It may not yet be the time to celebrate these achievements for we definitely have quite some way to go.

One would, however, have to be unfamiliar with our history not to acknowledge the fact that we have covered some ground.

VALUES

Some of the confusion we see must have to be part of the birth-pangs that every democratic nation has had to go through in delivering a truly credible democratic system.

That is not to say, however, that every new developing nation has to re-invent the wheel in the process of establishing such a democracy.

We are part of the democratic world and, therefore, it would be naïve to think we can try and invent our own peculiar form of democracy.

While it is true we have our own characteristics, it is also true there are certain values — even political ones — that have a universal nature.

G7 SUMMIT
As I have said before here, the global world we form part of is such that whatever happens in one corner has implications in other parts of the world.

The most powerful nations of the world — the G7 — are meeting in Italy.

Such meetings are not just about them. They are about them in reference to the rest of the world.

Let us do our politics in a manner that can earn us respect in the eyes of the world.

Writer is Dean of Students at the University of Nairobi [email protected]