To foster our democracy, we must start at the party level

There is a lot of talk and a lot of fear regarding the outcome of next year’s General Election.

This explains the calls by certain groups to disband the IEBC and to reconstitute the Supreme Court.

May be this could be justified given our past experience but, in my view, the real reason is that the majority of our politicians are inherently undemocratic in their approach to elective politics.

It all starts with the way the various political parties carry out their business.

In which Kenyan political party can one say that there is a true democratic approach to political activity? Or could this be the way party politics is conducted all over?

I have been watching the US primaries with a keen interest if only to try and understand their political culture. There seems to be a little problem even there.

The leading Republican candidate Donald Trump keeps crying foul at the party establishment while Ted Cruz talks about a contested convention.

The underdog in the Democratic party has his share of complaints about the Democratic Party establishment and their seeming preference for Hillary Clinton even though, on her own, she seems to be doing quite well.

DIFFRENCE

The difference between these American party biases and ours is that at least there they talk about an establishment.

Here, when one talks about a party and its preference, the reference is to an individual party owner and his preference.

I suppose building a democratic culture is a major undertaking which requires a lot of strength of character and objective thinking guided by a sense of justice.

In America they still talk about preferences after more than 200 years of independence. So, obviously, they have some way to go.

But do we need to reinvent the wheel? Why then did we go to them when we were crafting our new constitution?

We have noted before that the strongest desire that drives most of our modern day Kenyan politicians is that of gaining political power in order to control resources.

As such, many of them will do anything – including lying and doing violence – in order to get power.

If you ask them, they will tell you that politics is about interests. That may be true but are those interests not played out too obviously and sometimes crudely?

If our democracy is to grow to a respectable level, it has to start with internal party democracy.

For now, parties are owned by individuals who give tickets to those they prefer often with no regard for what the majority want. Shall we ever get to a point where we will talk about party establishment?

Fr Wamugunda is dean of students, University of Nairobi; [email protected]