When I first tried to explain to a friend the concept of a political alternative in the face of a deepening crisis of capitalism in Kenya, my ideologically challenged listener was quick to interject that there were already too many political alternatives in Kenya as exemplified by the circuit of political parties that dotted the Kenyan political landscape. His rumble was that it was wrong to claim shortage of political alternatives in Kenya when the multi-party system (earned out of a protracted and bloody struggle by Kenyans) had resulted in the construction of 30 plus competing political parties.
Indeed, ODM, TNA, URP, UDF, PNU, KANU, FORD, SDP, KNC, POA, FORD-Kenya, Narc-Kenya, Ford-Asili, New Ford-Kenya, Wiper, Ford-People, PIC, KNC et al were all “political alternatives” that had mushroomed following the abolition of the single party dictatorship in July 1990. According to my good friend’s observation, a drastic development witnessed following the emergence of “political alternatives” was that KANU, a party whose autocratic leaders misruled Kenya for more than four decades, had been vanquished to open the way for an alternative Party to come to power in Kenya. What does this brief narrative got to do with the just concluded chaotic nominations across the country?
The nominations, rout with irregularities and undemocratic practices especially within the biggest political parties like ODM and TNA, has awoken Kenyans to the fact that as a solution to the social and economic crisis facing the country, the citizens may be banking their hopes on parties whose very foundations are built on sand regardless of the popularity of leaders at the helm of these parties. The corruption and subterfuge that has been exposed in the process of the nomination process has proved that the very parties that could come to power in Kenya could be more corrupt and incompetent than any party that has ever held power in Kenya. Surely, if nomination certificates could be sold to the highest bidder irrespective of who had won the nomination, what else could these parties do once in power?
The nomination mess witnessed live by Kenyans and documented by the watchful Media is good for Kenya’s national democratic process. This is because the multiple failures have increased the political consciousness of thinking Kenyans who have just awoken to the painful reality that the biggest political parties opposing the corrupt Coalition government headed by President Mwai Kibaki are themselves rotten from top to bottom.
The obvious explanation behind the chaotic nominations is that despite the vast political competition inherent in the new pluralist Kenya, there is no ideological bond that fuses contending members of these parties. A bigger lesson out of the nomination chaos is that politics in the multiparty order has been converted into big business, complete with bargains and price tags on political positions.
Nomination certificates were being sold to the highest bidders because both buyers and sellers have mutually embraced the commercialization of politics in Kenya. This tendency has reduced the electorate to sheer spectators whose votes are inconsequential in the face of wheeling and dealing in the mad rush to constitute the next corrupt political elite that will be looting the economy and dispensing impunity as the masses of the Kenyan people continue to suffer.
Losing candidates were declared winners because the conspiracies were hatched at the inner core level of the rotten party leaderships. Internal political competition between aspiring candidates (which is good for democracy) was thrown out of the window and favoured aspirants given direct nomination certificates because political foundations of the various parties are based on cronyism, nepotism and back-door conspiracies.
It is notable that where illegal and undemocratic decisions were taken, these decisions were only reversed when the electorate, the bed-rock of political support of any political party, openly rebelled in the streets and in a way that threatened to awaken millions of sleeping minds to the fact that the very leaders preaching change and transformation were actually a gang of corrupt liars whose democratic ideals had failed the test at the nomination level. As a cover-up to prevent rebellion, the leaderships quickly retreated to Board rooms to align their decisions on party candidates with the will of the electorate.
A bitter choice between a group of wolves and a pack of hyenas
Although Kenya has many political parties there is no real political alternative to the thieving capitalist class because political alternatives are based on ideas, not loyalties to individuals and cartels. The nomination failures are good for democracy because they helped a huge section of voters to realize that the angels they seem to be worshipping are actually wolves in sheep-skins. Although many political parties have availed themselves in the political market place, they are all the same in the sense that they are all ethnic-based, corrupt and nepotistic while none of them adhere to any known political ideology. Under this arrangement, the irony is that in the midst of apparent plenty to choose from, the alternative is fundamentally the same.
In summary, come the next elections, Kenyans will be choosing between a group of wolves on the one hand and a pack of hyenas on the other to sit in Parliament in the name of looking into the interests of 40 million plus Kenyans. Although the country is faced with an election, Kenyans are, in reality, faced with the task of choosing their next blood suckers who will be milking the national cow in their personal interests and living large in the name of democracy as millions starve to death.
In parenthesis, the political parties represent a sack full of rotten potatoes and what Kenyans will be doing come the next elections will be to select the least rotten potato that can be roasted on the fire of “free choice” for the democratic life of the Nation to continue. This is because at the end of the day, the country must have a government which must be chosen by the so called people. If the choices available are all rotten, and, faced with the reality that one of them must be chosen for Kenyans to eat from the pot of democracy, then the options are limited. At the moment, the only rotten but edible potato visible from the stinking sack is what has become known as Cord and it is for this reason that this Coalition is leading in the opinion polls. Kenyans seem to believe that they can chop off Cord’s rotten parts and have a good meal.
Although he is a member of Cord, very few Kenyans will deny the fact that Kalonzo Musyoka is one of the most rotten politicians in Kenya today. If the rotten Uhuruto potato is chosen, Kenya will be the first country in the world to elect suspects of crimes against humanity to power and the fear that the country might choke to death if this happens has filled the air.
Be that as it may, the nomination scams are good for Kenya because advances in democratic practice is a process and not an event. Apart from learning a few lessons out of the catastrophic failures during the nomination process, much bitter lessons await Kenyans regardless of the composition of the next government.
Going by the character of the current political parties operating without ideologies, there should be no over-expectation of what is possible from these parties. In fact, the nomination fiasco should serve as a warning shot ahead of the main crisis that will face any of the parties in the event of a power take-over.
To be specific, there is no party that is ideologically equipped to sort out the problem of unemployment, corruption, tribalism, homelessness, landlessness, high cost of living, insecurity, mass poverty, mass starvation, just to mention but a few. If these parties cannot deal with nomination of party members to vie for positions at various levels, how can they be expected to deal with the bigger problems facing the nation such as poverty, disease, exploitation and dependency on foreign aid?
The biggest gain that Kenyans might expect after the next election is the toppling of members of the Kikuyu ruling class from power after Kibaki’s ten years of misrule. Although the Kalenjin ruling class was toppled by the Kikuyu ruling class ten years ago, nothing has changed in the lives of millions of Kenyans. In fact, life has become more terrible, more frustrations have mounted while more Kenyans are dissatisfied with a reformed system that cannot deliver the basic necessities of life.
Okoth Osewe
About the Author
Prime Minister Raila Odinga has promised that he will take a 50 per cent pay cut if he is elected president in the March 4 elections. During an interview on the BBC World Service’s News Hour programme on Thursday, Raila said he is against hefty salaries and allowances to senior government officials.
He said it was wrong for MPs to earn huge pay. “I have been against MPs increasing their salaries and over rewarding themselves,” said the Prime Minister. “I believe putting the pay check too high (for the MPs) has the effect of triggering demands from other sectors of society.”
Raila, who is running for Presidency on the Cord ticket, said although he has not worked out the exact figure he wants to be paid if he is elected the President, he is ready to have the pay reduced by 50 per cent.
When asked the practical measures he is ready to take to ensure other sectors of society do not demand high perks, Raila said: “I will begin by reducing my own pay as a President to give an example to the rest.”
Pushed further to explain the exact pay cut he was willing to take, Raila said, “I have not yet agreed on the figure, but up to a half the amount.”
The PM said he has also been pushing for payment of taxes by all state officers. President Kibaki earns Sh2 million a month as basic salary and about Sh1.2 million in benefits bringing the total to Sh3.1 million. This means that if Raila becomes President and lives up to his promise, his basic pay will be reduced to Sh1 million per month.
Why not arreat Kibaki and Company emmidietely after the Next govt takeover .What do you do with Madmen& women who cannot walk the Talk> look how fat-assed is the Ruling Class>
The sham nominations reflected the hypocrisy among major political parties which have cemented the art of doublespeak. While campaigning, their leaders offer empty promises to the youth, yet when many of them emerged as winners, the gluttonous politicians felt threatened and kicked them away from the future feeding tough. A cursory glance at the chaos across parties revealed the return of those that the electorate had rejected on the ballot, or those directly favored/imposed, yet had not contested.
Kenyan political parties have the capacity to build an ideological base, but the leaders seem to avoid that route because they do not want to be accountable to Wananchi. Unfortunately, these parties are merely personal vehicles for joining power and the electorate has no outright say in deciding who will represent them, even when offered a chance to cast votes.
The biggest challenge ahead is to elect a Government that will implement the new Constitution to the letter. William Ruto, the running mate of Uhuru Kenyatta in the Jubilee Coalition, vehemently opposed the constitutional referendum in 2010. This puts to question his ability to implement it in case their coalition wins in the General Election.
Uhuru Kenyatta is on record as the largest land owner in Kenya. The new constitution has clauses on land ownership and usage. Will he preside over this contention if elected president?
The fiasco exhibited in the concluded primaries can be rectified during the General Election, by voting wisely for the right presidential candidate who will be committed to implementing the new constitution.
Perhaps we should postpone the March General Election
Kenya could as well postpone the March elections. Last week’s party primaries made one thing crystal clear. Kenya is ill-prepared to conduct free and fair elections in March.
No one, and no single institution, is ready for the elections. Only a goddamned fool would go down a cliff with a car that’s got no brakes. There is a real danger that peace would be seriously disturbed during, and after, the elections.
Take this to the bank – Kenya is too fragile a state to withstand violent clashes in every corner of the country. If we love Kenya – and we do – let’s debate about the need to extend the date of the elections until we are reasonably ready.
There are five reasons why I think the elections must be put off. First, these are the most complex elections in Kenya’s history. The new Constitution, though a blessing, has created seemingly byzantine electoral norms and structures that are flummoxing not only to the ordinary Wanjiku, but to the elites.
It’s a complex system that would be challenging even for a developed democracy with a largely literate electorate.
None of these two conditions obtain in Kenya. Ours is a poor electorate that’s largely gullible. Our demagogic politicians know just how to bamboozle the electorate with money and tribal myopia. Mix this witch’s brew with political skulduggery, deliberate sabotage, and rent-seeking and you get a pregnant powder keg – a political volcano.
Second, a General Election is a process, not a single event. But one of the most important events in that process is political party primaries. Free and fair elections are eviscerated where party primaries are shambolic.
It’s like making tea without water, or milk. It’s a practical impossibility – it simply can’t be done. Water or milk is a condition sine qua non to tea.
Primitive test
There isn’t a single sane person who thinks the party primaries last week even pass the most primitive test. Missing, or stuffed ballots, rogue returning officers, dictatorship by party bosses, blatant nepotism and tribalism, vote-buying, daylight violence, voodoo math in vote-counting, and false results made nonsense of the exercise. It was a total sham.
The primary results are unsalvageable because they affect the two major coalitions – Cord and Jubilee. You can’t have a credible General Election where the two major alliances have fake or illegitimate primaries.
It seems only Musalia Mudavadi’s Amani, Martha Karua’s Narc-K, Peter Kenneth’s Eagle, and James ole Kiyiapi’s RBK carried out passable primaries.
But they are too small to restore legitimacy denied to the process by the main groupings. Cord and Jubilee botched the primaries partly because they carried them out too late.
The tactic to prevent losers from defecting to rivals was the last straw. Parties were exposed as highly disorganised and totally unprepared. That’s why the primary results are fruits of a poisoned tree – they are deadly and completely inedible.
Third, the two institutions charged with overseeing elections “completely went south”. Both the IEBC and the Registrar of Political Parties were a disgrace. They lazily and incompetently stood by rather than superintend themselves over the primary elections.
The RPP allowed the registration of new parties by politicians who belonged to other parties.
The IEBC and RPP failed to enforce legal deadlines for the integrity of the process. Parliament itself mutilated the Constitution by amending enabling laws to favour late party hopping, and pushed key deadlines to the edge of non-compliance.
The IEBC delayed voter registration and failed to check the accuracy of voter rolls. The IEBC and RPP allowed parties to bully them into incompetence, laxity, and several illegalities.
Fourth, the IEBC and the RPP shouldn’t have allowed the parties to carry out the primaries by themselves. It’s true that under ordinary circumstances parties do so. But the IEBC and the RPP know – as do all Kenyans – that our political parties are a fiction. They are nothing but husks for their bosses.
Jubilee belongs to Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta while Cord is the property of PM Raila Odinga. This is the bitter truth.
Parties have no firm structures, or internal democratic norms. That’s why the IEBC should have stepped in to oversee the primaries with firm credible deadlines. The IEBC’s failure to intervene has given us cooked and illegitimate results. Primaries weren’t even conducted in several cases.
Fifth, Kenya doesn’t have sufficient security apparatuses to effectively deal with violent breakouts all over the country during and after the elections. The competence and effectiveness of our police service has been brought to question. Look at their inability to deal with localised terror in Tana River.
Multiply that by a factor of 50 during the election and let us, in all honesty, say if they will be able to restore order. Unless the primary elections are repeated to produce credible results, there will be both “intra” and “inter” party violence.
You will have URP folks fighting TNA candidates, and ODM candidates fighting Wiper ones. And then you will have Cord candidates going after Jubilee ones and vice-versa. The whole thing is likely to degenerate into mayhem.
Finally, the electorate is highly tribalised, as are the parties. ODM didn’t really stage primaries in Central Kenya, nor did Jubilee in Nyanza. This doesn’t bode well for the March elections. I know there are those who will call me a “prophet of doom”. That’s their right.
But I prophesy nothing, let alone doom. I am rather giving a warning about what is likely to happen. It’s cockamamie to lay aside realistic analysis for wishful thinking. It’s foolish. It’s like rejecting warnings not to drink hemlock – then gulping it – and hope to survive.
Makau Mutua is Dean and SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of the KHRC
By NATION Reporter
Posted Saturday, January 26 2013 at 11:54
Prime Minister Raila Odinga has rejected the appointments of Inspector General of Police deputies and the Criminal Investigations Department director.
In a statement, Mr Odinga said President Kibaki’s appointments of Deputy Inspector General of Police Grace Kaindi, Samuel Arachi to head the Administration Police and Ndegwa Muhoro as CID boss were “unconstitutional as agreement had not been reached with the President about the appointees”.
“I had raised my serious objections to the three names that were presented to me in the consultations that were underway,” the PM said Saturday.
Mr Odinga said he had expressed his reservations on the integrity of the three officers and the appointments cannot stand since the issue remains unresolved.
“I had expressed reservations on their integrity, which needs to be unquestioned given the powerful role of the police in every aspect of the nation’s life, including of course the upcoming elections,” he said.
“The Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA) chairman Macharia Njeru had also issued a scathing report highlighting serious allegations touching on the integrity of CID head Ndegwa Muhoro.”
Mr Odinga said IPOA had written to the principals indicating that Mr Muhoro should not be considered for any police job.
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Raila-rejec….6m/-/index.html
Kenya is a very dangerous Country Gema has killed all Waiganjo close friends > This man wants to talk to PM Raila Oginga (grant him Permission) Kenyan wants to know the whole truth Forget about Kibaki-Gema Axis of Evil commissions>