Kenya needs democracy and not dictatorship to develop

Lawyers protest in Nairobi on February 15, 2018 protesting over failure by government officials to honour court orders. Debate is raging as patriots and democrats argue that development and President Uhuru Kenyatta’s legacy need more and more democracy. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Mzee Jomo Kenyatta decided he would govern the people with dictatorship, and not democracy.
  • Kenya would adopt a one-party dictatorship and abandon multiparty democracy.

  • Opposition parties were banned and leaders jailed or detained.

Debate is raging as patriots and democrats argue that development and President Uhuru Kenyatta’s legacy need more and more democracy.

But the conservatives and dictators assert that development and the President’s legacy require the reintroduction of Kanu-style ethnic and executive dictatorship.

When reasonable Kenyans think their President’s association with dictatorship is a tragedy and an insult, the tribalists and sycophants bow to dictatorship as a saviour.

KING REHOBOAM

This debate is similar to the story of King Rehoboam in the Bible. 

King Solomon had just died and his son, Rehoboam, had succeeded him when the people from the 12 tribes of Israel sent a delegation to him, asking him to lessen repression.

The young king sought the counsel of elders, who told him that good governance would secure loyalty.

The king also sought the advice of young people, who told him to promise more burden, terror, exploitation and repression. He said: “My father placed heavy burdens on you; I will make them even heavier. He beat you with whips; I will flog you with bullwhips.”

When he denied the people freedom, 10 tribes rebelled, leaving him with only two tribes, Judah and Benjamin.

DEATE

In Kenya, the debate on whether people should have dictatorship or democracy started at independence.

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta decided he would govern the people with dictatorship, and not democracy.

Kenya would adopt a one-party dictatorship and abandon multiparty democracy.

Opposition parties were banned and leaders jailed or detained.

In 1982, this debate was revisited in response to the crisis of one-party dictatorship, whose hallmarks were terror, torture, detention, silence, fear and ruin.

BULLDOZED

President Daniel arap Moi then bulldozed a castrated and cowed Parliament to bar multiparty democracy by inserting Section 2A into the Constitution, making Kenya a de jure one-party state.

Parliament banned democracy knowing that what the MPs were doing was national suicide, morally wrong, a betrayal of conscience, cowardice and fear that exposed the country to a military coup.

But did one-party dictatorship develop Kenya if dictatorship is the panacea for our underdevelopment? It didn’t.  Indeed, by the time multiparty democracy was restored, the country was in the Intensive Care Unit economically.

DICTATORSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT

Though dictatorship did not develop us for 55 years, people like Mutahi Ngunyi, David Murathe, Ndindi Nyoro, Prof Peter Kagwanja and many others are demanding dictatorship for development.

They say it is tyranny, not democracy that developed Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia and China.

But did dictatorship develop these countries or make their leaders great?

The teams of Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore and Kim Dae-jung in South Korea never glorified dictatorship.

Instead, they advanced democracy and accountability and prosecuted corrupt leaders such as Cabinet minister Teh Cheang-wan of Singapore and presidents Park-Geun-hye, Chun-Doo-Hywan, Roh Tae-Woo and Roh Moo hyun of South Korea.

CHINESE COMMUNISM

They also put to proper use aid from America, given to forestall the spread of Chinese communism.

Unlike Kenya, they also ensured that negative ethnicity did not divide their people into tribal enclaves. 

A former South Korean president committed suicide rather than undergo trial for corruption. It is incorruption not dictatorship that propelled the Asian Tiger economies into the First World.

Under social democracy, Scandinavian countries have developed and made themselves the happiest societies in the world.

Why do we not look up to them as models of development? Because social democracy will not tolerate corruption, dictatorship and leadership for self-gain.

To develop, Kenya does not need dictatorship. It needs social democracy. It needs no dictatorship, negative ethnicity and corruption, but democracy.

 

Mr Wamwere is a veteran politician. [email protected]