Whatever the system, we get the leaders we deserve

Nasa supporters joke as they pretend to cry for President Uhuru Kenyatta in Kibra, Nairobi, on September 1, 2017 after the Supreme Court nullified his re-election. After the latest presidential election, raw emotions have been roused once again. PHOTO | YASUYOSHI CHIBA | AFP

What you need to know:

  • Suggestions are even being made of a rotational presidency, although the basis of the rotation is an unclear ethnic characteristic.
  • An election will always produce a winner and a loser, and their voters will be left with feelings of either elation or despair.

Over the past two or three election cycles, we have had serious soul-searching after the results.

Due to the emotive campaigns especially for presidential elections and the relative closeness of the results, we have always had debates as to whether the then structure of the executive is the ideal one for our purposes or not.

We have agonised over the best system of government for our country, shifting from presidential to hybrid presidential and parliamentary and finally to the devolved system that, though still presidential, disperses executive and legislative authority to the counties as well.

SECESSION
After the latest presidential election, raw emotions have been roused once again.

In the extreme, there are those who are trying to ignite a debate about secession, arguing that all attempts to establish a society where equity and justice rule have been thwarted by a powerful ethnopolitical cabal that has proved impossible to dislodge from power.

Others who are more optimistic are beginning to talk about further reorganisation of our government to ensure a sharing of presidential power at the national level.

DEVOLUTION
Suggestions are even being made of a rotational presidency, although the basis of the rotation is an unclear ethnic characteristic.

Some are hiding behind euphemisms such as county or region, when in fact they are talking about the so-called leaders of the various tribes and tribal coalitions having a stab at the presidency.

Despite devolution, the presidency remains the ultimate individual prize.

Unfortunately, knowing this country as it is structured, presidential elections will always hold some bitterness, since it is the ultimate prize for any political formation.

DEMOCRACY
As long as we have to hold some sort of election to decide who will be at the apex of state power, we shall always disagree on who is fit to hold that office, and we shall always have people who feel that the holder of the office is unfit for one reason or another.

That is the product of a democracy.

While democratic elections are touted as the best possible outcome of a process of selecting the best possible leader for a group of people, the idea that is often neglected is that for a winner to be declared, a vast number of voters must be left feeling forlorn and lost, especially in closely fought elections.

WINNER
Expecting an election to produce a cohesive result is therefore the expectation of an idiot, since any clever individual will know that an election is the most divisive event in any community.

An election will always produce a winner and a loser, and their voters will be left with feelings of either elation or despair.

Having to repair our constitution every time half our population is disappointed in elections seems to be an exercise in futility because, in a perfectly poised democracy, it will be very difficult for any party to achieve an absolute majority.

There will always be a party that feels disappointed and one that wildly rejoices on its win.

DICTATORSHIP
In my view, the only thing we must agree on at the outset is our commitment to a particular system of government, after which we must allow the system to work its charms and produce the leaders we deserve.

We can agree, as we did in our constitution, on a representative democracy in which lots of power vests in our representatives at both the national and the county levels, in which case we must contend with devolved thuggery and authoritarianism.

We could also agree, as we have in the past, on a model of “democracy” akin to the dictatorship seen in Kenya in the late seventies and in the eighties.

INTEGRITY

In either case, we cannot rise up in arms every time a system we design throws up thugs and conmen as our leaders.

My belief is that whatever system we deploy, we always deserve the leaders we elect.

It therefore doesn’t matter whether, as theorised by David Ndii, the scum rises to the top or the fish rots from the head, the end result is a society that deserves everything it gets.

Atwoli is Associate Professor and Dean, Moi University School of Medicine [email protected]