Poverty line casts dark shadow over 2017 General Election

Boys walk their donkey to a water source several kilometers from their home in Nyakach, Kisumu County. PHOTO | TOM OTIENO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Extreme poverty begets upheavals.
  • Poverty is one of the most important issues in the 2017 presidential election in Kenya.
  • Success in rolling back poverty has enabled powers like China to rise.
  • A good record in poverty eradication is a certificate for re-election.

Certainly, the problem of the 21st century is the problem of the poverty line – separating those above the estimated minimum level of income a person or a family needs to live, from those below it or the poor.

Extreme poverty begets upheavals. “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime,” said the renowned Greek philosopher Aristotle.

As such, ending poverty is a crucial agendum across the world.

Poverty is one of the most important issues in the 2017 presidential election in Kenya.

Today, poverty is the greatest threat to democracy.

RE- ELECTION

Despite the hype around the “Africa Rising,” poverty is growing even as economies are rising fast.

The fight against poverty has become a double-edged sword.

Success in rolling back poverty has enabled powers like China to rise.

A good record in poverty eradication is a certificate for re-election.

However, in the age of populism, the poor face a double jeopardy.

TRIGGER VIOLENCE

First, as the Indian political and spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi, aptly remarked, “Poverty is the worst form of violence” against the poor.

But the poor have also become pawns in elite wedge politics where poverty is exploited to trigger violence.

Leadership is key to poverty eradication. “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of,” said the Chinese philosopher, Confucius.

Two recent events reveal the Janus-faced nature of poverty eradication.

POVERTY ERADICATION

The first vent is a high-level forum organised jointly by the African Union and the Zhenjiang Normal University (China) in Addis Ababa Ethiopia on June 21-22, 2017 on “shared experiences in poverty eradication between China and Africa”.

The Sino-Africa dialogue on poverty centred on the newly published book by the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, titled: Up and Out of Poverty (2016), which highlights lessons that enabled China to lift 715 million people from poverty since 1978.

A highly disciplined power elite largely accounts for the greatest success in the fight against poverty in human history, contributing over 70 percent of global poverty reduction.

Second, in the run-up to the 2017 General Election, poverty in Kenya is feeding the embers of populism based on food shortages (Unga revolution) and more ominously on the emotive issue of land in the context of the 2016-2017 drought.

POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Kenya is already facing low intensity political violence widely blamed on wedge politics. One area affected by months of politically inspired low intensity violence is multi-ethnic Laikipia County, a long-standing case of exploitation of grievances.

In March, armed herders shot and killed a British co-owner of the Sosian Ranch, Mr Tristan Voorspuy.

In April, the herders injured world famous Swiss author, conservationist and owner of the 100,000-acre Ol Ari Nyiro farm, Ms Kuki Gallman.

Ironically, Laikipia has been a theatre of poor-on-poor violence. Samburu pastoralists have attacked small-scale Kenyan farmers, who are not members of the tribe.

LAND INVASIONS

Hard on the heels of these killings, Opposition leader Raila Odinga was accused by local leaders of inciting the land invasions where herdsmen had been forcibly driving their cattle into the big ranches, destroying lodges, burning homes and reacting violently to any resistance.

A parliamentarian from Mr Odinga’s ODM party, Mr Mathew Lempurkel, was arrested and charged in connection with the attack on Mr Voorspuy’s farm.

In a widely-read article published on June 12, 2017, the Times of London cited Mr Odinga as saying that, if elected, his administration will seize and break up the vast ranches and game conservancies owned by white farmers in Laikipia County and the surrounding Northern Kenya region.

ODINGA DENIED REPORT

However, Odinga denied the report, saying that the paper had “misplaced” his comments and suggested he was among politicians behind the Laikipia violence.

Instead, he exculpates the invaders, blaming the orgy of violence on the ranch owners.

“These ranches are too big and the people don’t even live there, they live in Europe and only come once in a while,” he said.

Odinga also accused the Jubilee Government of failure to offer a lasting solution.

“There’s a need for a rationalisation to ensure that there’s more productive use of that land,” he said.

ABSENTEE FOREIGNERS

The Times article observed that Odinga’s characterisation of the ranches as “too big” and as owned by absentee foreigners pointed to one policy direction: His government will dismantle the ranches. 

It concluded that this suggested support of the violent land invasions and advocating Zimbabwe-style land seizures, which Odinga has denied.

Even before the dust had settled on Laikipia, Odinga was in the eye of another firestorm related to poverty.

On June 16, 2017, in a controversial video that went viral on social media covering his remarks during a campaign rally in Maili 46 in Kajiado County, Odinga made statements interpreted as advocating the violent expulsion of “outsiders” or non-Maasai communities from Maasailand.

SELLING LAND

Arguing that the local Maasai are selling their land because of poverty and have been rendered poor by their sale of land to other communities, Odinga cautioned the herders against disposing of their ancestral land and warned that “outsiders” should be barred from buying land in Kajiado. They (“outsiders”) should by land in their own ancestral homelands. 

President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy, William Ruto, accused Odinga of trying to incite Maasai against non-Maasai in order to spark ethnic violence akin to the 2007-2008 post-election violence.

But Odinga insisted: “I talked of land in the context of poverty alleviation and the Jubilee Government stands accused of depriving the people of Kajiado to the point of selling their land for a song.”

He averred that the “outsiders” come and buy land “because of Maasai’s poverty”, insisting that the Maasai “are victims of historical land injustices”. 

RAISED EMOTIONS

Whether deliberately or inadvertently, Raila’s statement in Kajiado raised emotions on land. In the 1992-2007 period, over a million Kenyans were displaced.

And in the  2007-2008 post-election violence, 600,000 Kenyans were displaced. 

A victorious fight against poverty requires peace and stability, decades of sustained growth and policies targeting poor sectors of society.

 Prof Kagwanja is Chief Executive of Africa Policy Institute and former government adviser