Hold your horses; we still have 18 months to go before polls

Nyali MP Awiti Bolo (centre) and other leaders received at the Moi International Airport in Mombasa on January 31, 2016 where he declared that will he will be vying for the Mombasa Gubernatorial seat in the next General Election. We have a whole year and six months to go, but we are already in the grip of a fever that recurs every five years. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • We have a whole year and six months to go, but we are already in the grip of a fever that recurs every five years, and from which we hardly recover before it is upon us again.
  • It is always surprising how much time, energy and money some people are willing to expend trying to liberate Kenyans from one evil regime or another.
  • Our politics have been carried out in a high-octane environment, for a single thoughtless utterance may lead to renewed chaos.

We have a whole year and six months to go, but we are already in the grip of a fever that recurs every five years, and from which we hardly recover before it is upon us again.

This fever is what, in polite society, is referred to as a General Election, during which we choose people to govern us.

The only problem is that in Kenya, before the exultations of victory and groans of defeat are over, we are already in campaign mode, going at it hammer and tongs, ready to exchange utter inanities, behaving as though elective politics is a matter of life and death.

To some people, it actually is, which makes politics a high-stakes drama played by actors who may not be as interested in the public good as we imagine.

This can be frightening to those of us who have little to gain and a great deal to lose when we choose the wrong rulers. And the interpretation of that choice usually depends on whether the winners or losers are members of our tribes.

It is always surprising how much time, energy and money some people are willing to expend trying to liberate Kenyans from one evil regime or another.

And it is always amazing how liberally vitriol and venom are spewed all over, regardless of the collateral damage caused. But then politics was never for the faint-hearted. As the poet said, all is fair in love and war, and in Kenya, politics is the equivalent of war to be waged using every strategy, be it fair or foul.

GREAT TREPIDATION

As a practising journalist, I always faced the political season, especially the campaign period, with great trepidation. Though I never “covered” election campaigns, having been a desk jockey my entire working life, there were days when I woke up with a sense of foreboding, asking myself the questions: Did I betray my feelings, therefore annoying half my newspaper’s readership while pleasing the other half?

Did the articles I chose suggest that I favoured one political party over another? Did the photograph I used send a subliminal message as to which presidential candidate I preferred? Would I be dubbed a traitor to my tribe because I rejected a piece of propaganda masquerading as fair comment?

In the past, this never used to be the case. All that an editor needed to do was to highlight the least banal utterance from the competing sycophants seeking to please the ruling party mandarins and the President, publish it, and wait to carry out the same mind-numbing task the following day.

In a sense, those were the good old days, for there never were any real campaigns until the re-introduction of multiparty politics in 1992.

That is when the problems began. Our politics since have been carried out in a high-octane environment, for a single thoughtless utterance may lead to renewed chaos.

CLASHES ERUPTING

We never really learnt any lesson from the 2008/2009 post-election violence, and I have a feeling the inter-communal clashes erupting every other day are linked to next year’s elections. I hope to be proved wrong.

So what is the way out? Must we go through this cycle of self-immolation as a nation just to prove that we are a civilised country with democratic credentials?

Some people have suggested that we change our electoral cycle to allow our leaders a single term of seven years and no more, but I hardly think this is the answer. The sore losers will just start campaigning six years earlier, while the winners will start plotting how to hang on forever, by fair means or foul.

****

Nakuru MCAs are a worried lot. Each was given a Sh2 million loan to buy a car, and now, after doing their calculations, the poor fellows have realised they will not have cleared their loans before they are probably chucked out next year. So what to do?

Allow us to work more hours so that we can earn more in allowances even if it means forgoing part of the long December recess, they beg on bended knee.

But at least they are honest; they do not pretend to be too concerned with offering services to the people. They just want more money; period. If it means they work 11 months a year instead of the constitutionally prescribed 10, it is a small sacrifice to make.