Steer away from six-piece suit to save Kenya from mobocracy
What you need to know:
- In civilised democracies, capturing power mostly turns on performance at a number of levels as India’s Congress Party so painfully found out a few years ago.
Today, the USA elections are being contested on issues of performance, integrity and suitability.
It is not accidental that the most active politician in this season of courtship is Mr William Ruto, rather than Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, who will be at the top of the ticket.
By reaching out to other communities beyond the Gikuyu and Kalenjin (and Luo), Mr Ruto is laying the ground for a new coalition should Mt Kenya politicians stray from supporting him.
The campaign season for the next elections is firmly upon us, as the UhuRuto regime troops out across the country, and receives delegation after delegation. The script is familiar: Handouts, whose origins are mysterious, are given and promises of high office and rewards are made to those who will deliver communities.
Often, these patronage promises are couched in the language of communities getting development; or communities being brought in from the “cold” to be closer to the “warmth” of power.
It is a stark, and sad, reminder that in Kenya, presidential politics is not about performance and delivery to the people of Kenya, no matter their political views.
In most civilised democracies, capturing power mostly turns on performance at a number of levels as India’s Congress Party so painfully found out a few years ago.
As did Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party in Canada last year.
Today, the USA elections are being contested on issues of performance, integrity and suitability.
Alas for us, our “democracy” at this level is still stuck in the pre-2010 Constitution days of tribal politics and numbers. It does not matter what a regime has done or not done. What counts is how to convince communities that they or some of their own may benefit from being “close” to power. This is the perfect breeding ground for impunity.
There has never been as much eating and corruption in modern Kenya: the scandal of the National Youth Service theft is overlooked; the truth of Eurobond proceeds remains opaque, confused and in the dark; the killings by the police and military are left unsaid; the virtual emergency over north-eastern Kenya, and the blatant Islamophobia there and at the coast remain unspoken; the skewed, unprocedural, and illegal appointments to public office and boards favouring the two tribes in power are forgotten; and most people still fear encountering a policeman over meeting thugs, given that we are more likely to be killed by a policeman than by thugs, according to IMLU’s research.
BECOME IRRELEVANT
Yet when it comes to presidential elections, these issues become irrelevant.
But because we have experienced the clout and influence of governors at a much closer level, we may well get to the stage where performance will matter at the gubernatorial and MCA levels.
But that means we must work against the idea of the “six-piece suit” approach to voting, to elect the most suitable governors and MCAs no matter what the party leaders think. It is not accidental that the most active politician in this season of courtship is Mr William Ruto, rather than Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, who will be at the top of the ticket. For Mr Ruto, this is not about 2017. This is about the aftermath of 2017, whether Jubilee are declared winners or not.
First by creating a single political entity, bringing his URP together with Mr Kenyatta’s TNA party, Mr Ruto hopes to bind the Mt Kenya political leadership in a party in which he has significant clout and power, in order to make it a bit more difficult, and more costly politically, for them to “use and dump” him post-2017.
With all of them wrapped up in this new party, any attempts to deviate from their promises to support him will come with significant political and moral disadvantage, making it harder for them to seek new partners to craft a new coalition, proving to be selfish, arrogant and insular.
Second, by reaching out to other communities beyond the Gikuyu and Kalenjin (and Luo), Mr Ruto is laying the ground for a new coalition should Mt Kenya politicians stray from supporting him. And having learnt at the feet of Mr Daniel Moi, we should not be surprised if he is already dangling the promise of the deputy presidency to different players, including from Mt Kenya, in return for their support! In fact, this “new” coalition is looking eerily similar to Mr Moi’s old Kanu after 1991.
But Mr Ruto should learn from the collapse of Mr Moi’s Kanu under the weight of its own contradictions, unable to satisfy the promises made, after emptying state coffers. We barely survived then but will we survive another Moiesque era?
