It's time for our politicians to start listening

The Sarah Serem–led Salaries and Remuneration Commission handed a sucker punch this week to thousands of electoral candidates already dreaming of how to spend their anticipated massive salaries and exorbitant allowances. Gone are many wasteful allowances that initiated decent people into the ways of corruption. Bringing sanity back into politicians’ remunerations was a powerful reminder that elected leaders must be accountable to taxpayers and they must also listen to the citizens.

Politicians are not just good at lying to the public. They also score poorly at listening to them. The same empty rhetoric and ridiculous promises are spewed out in a different venue every day. The only differences are the dancers and the insults, tailored to local needs. Politicians present themselves as the answers to all our problems. They remind me of that billboard along Valley Road in Nairobi that says ‘Jesus is the Answer’ but no one tells us what the question is.

THEIR ARROGANCE

Politicians never take time to ask the public what concerns, worries or challenges them. In their arrogance and ignorance, they presume prior and expert knowledge of the human condition and they are the professionals to alleviate all our suffering. The truth, however, is that most candidates at every level are afraid to sit down and give the public an opportunity to question them over their past performance or to interrogate their pledges for the next five years. Most have skeletons in their cupboards and they dread that the voters may discover and resurrect them. To listen to citizens’ demands and to take them on board is a sign of weakness for many candidates. They prefer to hide under ten gallon hats in SUVs than to ride on a donkey like the man from Galilee.

Humility, then, is a sign of weakness in public life rather than the major requirement for public service. Truthfulness, honesty and humility are not the values that we generally associate with political life anywhere in the world. They are frequently ridiculed as irrelevant and unworkable values anyhow. Yet, the same representatives will promise to obey the Constitution when sworn into office. They don’t care that the word ‘obedience’ comes from the Latin word to ‘listen deeply’. Do the political class ever listen to ‘the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth’ that Pope Francis speaks of?

BEING INTERROGATED

Yet, the public is fast teaching candidates the ways of humility and listening through the many public forums and vetting exercises that are going on throughout the country. From the ward level up, candidates are being interrogated by the voters on issues that concern them. Those who avoid such debates will be viewed negatively while those with an agenda that is convincing have a chance to win over undecided voters. This is a positive democratic development for it gives power back to the public and contributes to more peaceful campaigns at the grassroots.

However, such laudable initiatives should not be confined to election time if they are to create more democratic space in the country. They must be a continuous feature of public life if they are to produce leaders who can listen humbly to the constituents who put them in office.

Fr Gabriel Dolan is based in Mombasa.

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@GabrielDolan1