This is in response to numerous emails to KSB calling for a Socialist view of the constitutional writing process. I hope that much of the key questions raised by readers have been answered in this article otherwise feel free to mail any further questions.
As a political entity, the Kenya Red Alliance (KRA) has a clear position on the Draft Constitution. Everyone agrees that Kenya needs a new and democratic constitution acceptable to all the people of Kenya. For more than three decades, the process of writing this new constitution has continuously been hampered by competing interests within the capitalist ruling class since the days of former Dictator Daniel arap Moi with various ad hoc Committees being set up and partisan Party groupings crystallizing to either subvert the process, hijack or manipulate it to their own advantage.
Although the production of a perfect constitution might not be possible especially when the process is not all inclusive, there is clear indication to suggest that the content of the final Draft of the constitution presented by the PSC will not serve the general interests of millions of Kenyans across the country.
Regardless of whether or not more than one million Kenyans gave their views to PSC on the Draft, the arrangement under which PSC was created and the circumstances of its officials means that the final Draft will carter for the collective interests of the ruling class with differences having been witnessed at the ODM/PNU Party level in far-away discussion settings in Naivasha and other luxury hotels across the country before the two parties compromised to give Kenya a new brand of Imperial President.
Most importantly, the Draft Constitution does not address the most serious issues affecting millions of Kenyans today namely the right to food, clothing and shelter. Under the political and economic arrangement in Kenya presided over by the rich and where millions are living under sub-human conditions, even the drafting of the most democratic constitution will not put food on the table for the starving millions across the country. This is because the constitution is not designed to check the greed of the wealthy owners of capital who control food distribution networks across the country. The consequence is that food prices will continue to rise, inflation will continue to spiral while more Kenyans will enter into the “Starvation list” because the Draft Constitution leaves food pricing on the hands of profit makers and their allies.
Socialists believe that the constitution is a piece of paper whose overall importance can only be recognized if the power to implement its content is on the hands of the majority of citizens with workers, the main producers of wealth, playing a key role in the whole process. However democratic a constitution may be, the general perspective within the Socialist camp is that the capitalist ruling class will always violate the document whenever their interests are threatened especially during crisis or social upheavals occasioned by revolt against repressive laws or revolutionary activity which threaten to overturn the rich man’s system. One quick example will suffice.
The colonial constitution under which Kenya is governed at the moment guarantees both Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Association but since the Coalition government was cobbled by Kofi Anan, it has been banning public rallies (just like Moi did) even when the conveners have followed the law and served police with notices about rallies, the basic requirement under the current law. In some cases, the government has sent police to shoot to kill or tear gas innocent civilians during demonstrations so, where is the guarantee that under the new constitution, rules will be respected? Kenyans need to wake up and think beyond the constitution. The current constitution allows for freedom of expression but when books that threaten the status quo are published by Kenyans, the banning of books has been used by the State as a weapon to curtail freedom of expression and the right of Kenyans to know. It all boils down to who controls the implementation of the constitution and in whose interest.
In the case of Kenya, much of the drafting, discussion and the so called “harmonization” of the Draft document was left on the hands of agents working for the system. Although PSC members seem to hold impeachable credentials, those handling the document have a duty to ensure that its final content does not threaten the vested economic and political interests of the capitalist ruling class and their foreign backers. Once again, let me give a few examples.
The Draft Constitution increases the number of MPs at taxpayer’s expense without any added quality in governance. At the same time it does not reduce the one million shillings in salaries of sitting MPs who refused to pay taxes on their huge salaries. Is that democratic?
Secondly, the Draft does not abolish private ownership of vast pieces of land therefore, known and well documented land grabbers (local and foreign) like President Mwai Kibaki, former dictator Daniel arap Moi, the entire Kenyatta family, grand children of former white colonial masters owning vast estates in the Rift Valley etc can rest assured that their ill-gotten wealth will not be affected if the constitution is adopted through Parliament. In this sense, the draft is serving the interests of wealth grabbers and their foreign allies.
The content of the Draft Constitution reinforces the myth that only MPs representing capitalist interests can run the Kenyan society through Parliament. For this reason, the Draft has conspicuously excluded workers from the running of society although they are the producers of wealth looted by politicians on a constant basis. For Socialist thinkers, Kenyans who are in the best position to come up with the perfect constitution are the working people. They are the “bank rollers” of the State and, logically, they are the key “Stake holders” in the situation who should have the biggest say. Unfortunately, this important class has been kept away from the process by the rich while their most important interests as workers have been sidelined from the document. Why?
As a single example, the best option would be for the constitution to limit the salaries of MPs by pegging it to no more than the salary of a skilled worker. For Socialists, the argument is that a person who is representing workers and poor people should not have any privileges because of the corrupting nature of privileges promoted by personal accumulation of wealth obtained through systematic looting of State coffers.
The Draft Constitution leaves MPs and top civil servants with millions of Kenyan shillings at the end of every month without pegging a minimum living wage for every worker based on the rate and level of inflation. In fact, the current draft leaves workers with “starvation wages” that condemns them to lives of perpetual poverty and in this sense, the Draft cannot be said to be democratic unless the word “democracy” has acquired a new meaning.
The “Missing Link” Between Presidential and Parliamentary Systems
Another issue is that discussion about the Draft has mainly been based on whether Kenya should have a Presidential or Parliamentary system of government. For Socialists, the two systems are defective because both of them do not allow workers to collectively engage in politics and influence society although it is their money that funds the State. In the minds of millions of Kenyans, there is no other system apart from the Parliamentary and Presidential because vast sections of the population has been brainwashed over the years to believe that only the two systems exist.
From a Socialist perspective, a third option which could have been put on the table if Socialists were in the “Draft team” to present the arguments is the option of a democratic constitution based on what Socialists call a “Workers democracy” that draws its oxygen from the concept of “Democratic centralism”. For beginners, a “Workers democracy” is based on worker-driven politics where workers are represented in Parliament through a “Workers Party” to argue political issues from the point of view of Workers and not from the point of view of the wealth grabbers represented by capitalist MPs. “Democratic centralism” is the equivalent of what the draft gurus have been calling “Devolution of powers”. It would be better to return to these issues in another contribution.
After examining the unspeakable extent of looting of the tax payer’s money, Socialists arguing on behalf of Workers should have proposed a limitation of MPs salaries in the constitution. To give an inkling, think of the amount of money the country could save to be pumped into say, health care, if MPs were to earn Ksh 50.000 each (or less), a condition which would be imposed on all candidates standing on a Worker’s platform. This is a small dose of Socialist politics. We have more than ten million workers in Kenya and every elected President has been taking over office with less than 5 million votes.
The point is that with a population of 10 million, Workers in Kenya can take over power and run society in their interest but this is not possible at the moment because workers have no access to working class politics due to lack of a Movement or Party that can lead the struggle for Workers power.
The position of Kenyan Socialists is that after the disastrous 46 years of experimentation with capitalism, a rich man’s system which has destroyed Kenya and sold the country to imperialist collaborators, it is time to replace the system with Socialism. Kenyan socialists must team up together and convince Kenyans about the need to abolish capitalism, a system which is in crisis, not just in Kenya but internationally.
Kenyans should not just be told that Socialism collapsed in the former Soviet Union and other Eastern block countries when the active population has never been exposed to socialist ideas in the first place. The current Draft Constitution is built on “crumbled capitalist foundations” and the best Kenyans can expect is that it will favor the rich and discriminate against the poor because the document is under the control of the rich. Under the constitution, the police will continue to arrest the poor while sparing the rich looters of the State.
What can be celebrated about the new Draft is that it could open up the democratic space and enable debate to continue about the solution to the crisis facing our country so that Kenyans can decide whether they would like to continue suffering under the rotten system of capitalism or whether they would prefer liberation under a new system of Socialism, the only known system through which society’s wealth can be distributed equitably. The new Draft does not recognize this urgency but seeks to maintain the status quo.
Okoth Osewe
Interim Secretary
Kenya Red Alliance (KRA)
About the Author
kenyan people have a tenderncy for listening to others rather reading for themselves
You fools. Marxism enslaves, not liberates. It just replaces on ruling class with another. Kenya will be destroyed with your new constitution.
Socialism is tyranny. Marx was a overeducated spoiled brat – a leach as was engels and hess. . His theories were all wrong and doomed to failure. Everywhere socialism and marxism was tried in Africa is lead to misery. Don’t be a fool. The Americans have a marxist president in the US now. Wait and watch that free country collapse into anarchy and misery in a few years.
Raffi: At least, the only system Kenyans have tested and experienced for almost 50 years is capitalism and what has it done? Left us with mass poverty, mass unemployment, mass homelessness, mass starvation, illiteracy, corruption, tribalism (thru capitalist divide and rule policy), nepotism, plunder of human and natural resources, political dictatorship, widening gap between the rich capitalists and the exploited masses, collapse of the health care system, collapsed infrastructure, lack of clean drinking water, ghettoes in the cities, thieving MPs seeking to get rich, land grabbing, crime as iddle youth seek to survive, unaffordable consumer commodities, death and the list is endless. Hopeless Imperialist intervention in our politics, economy and culture…
Kenyan socialists need to put forward their solutions so that Kenyans can decide what they want. This is how democracy works. Let political ideas be sold in the market place. Capitlaism is rotten to the core. If you think Obama is a socialist, I begin to doubt your understanding of socialism and your ability to debate the matter.