Why seek divine intervention if leaders can solve all problems?
What you need to know:
- As human beings, we all have our weaknesses.
- We should not demand perfection from our leaders, for doing so is not just futile but also delusional.
An eminent French scholar and lexicographer of the 19th century reputedly said in a burst of frustration, “Our form of government is superb with one significant imperfection. Every four years we must elect God as our President”. If we replace the word “four” with “five”, this may as well refer to the impossible expectations that we Kenyans place on the shoulders of those we elect as president after every five years.
These sentiments must be taken to heart by all who seek to lead this country. Mind you, this is not just about the two men, one of whom we must elect president on August 8. I include all those campaigning for leadership at every level. They must weigh their words carefully with the knowledge that the attributes of God, including infallibility, omniscience and all-round perfection, are beyond human capabilities. Whoever is fighting for power must realise that his turn will come when he will be rendered speechless if expected to solve every crisis on earth.
At the same time, when we voters are being wooed with utopian promises, it is something we must bear in mind. We troop to the polling booth to elect people whose only difference with us is that they desire power, when our only desire is to eat well, sleep well, educate our children, and keep disease at bay. No leader is superhuman; the good leader is one who seeks civil ways to solve problems that afflict his people while the bad leader is the one who uses the coercive power of the State to enforce his dictates.
NO DEMAND
Let me put it this way: as human beings, we all have our weaknesses and we should not demand perfection from our leaders, for doing so is not just futile but also delusional. When we attribute all the problems buffeting us to the failures of our leaders and we expect the same leaders to solve all those problems – personal, communal and societal – we are turning them into omnipotent beings, which they can’t ever be.
A video clip making the rounds in WhatsApp has Tanzania President John Pombe Magufuli delivering pep talk to his countrymen. He pointedly tells them that the role of government is not to give them food when they are hungry but to make conditions right for them to feed themselves. President Magufuli is popular in Kenya because he tells it as it is; he rarely beats about the bush. We want our president to do the same and are mightily offended when he doesn’t, regardless of the circumstances.
Of course Dr Magufuli’s seeming effectiveness is the result of increasing intolerance to dissent, which we here in Kenya cannot stomach, and a constitution that allows him to do almost anything he wishes without reference to anyone else, including a pesky Legislature and other disruptive institutions. We Kenyans must choose: either we allow a whiff of dictatorship from our rulers in order to get things done, or we settle for the form of democracy that stymies every effort at service delivery through time-consuming litigation. We certainly can’t have both.
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The law that says a presidential incumbent should not use his past achievements to campaign for votes is a nonsensical piece of legislation that has no place in our statutes. How on earth can a presidential contender be barred from articulating what he has done in the past and what he intends to do in the future? If your opponent is allowed to enumerate your failures, surely the only way to rebut such criticism is to detail your successes. During campaigns, if you don’t sing your own praises, who will?
Reads the law in Section 14 (2) of the Election Offences Act 2016: “No government shall publish any advertisements of achievements of the respective government either in the print media, electronic media, or by way of banners or hoardings in public places during the elections period.”
It appears that while attempting to create a level playing field, the lawyers who came up with this jewel over-reached themselves. For instance, how do you stop a president talking about the roads his government has built in its first term? How does he answer those critics who try to convince gullible audiences that his government has not fulfilled a single pledge made since he was elected?
They say the law is an ass, but this one beats them all in the braying department.
