We’re barely 8months into the ‘new’ administration and the politics of 2022 has taken over-completely eclipsing the administration’s much touted big four agenda or the charade we’re being treated to in the name of fighting corruption. But in a country where more than 90% of the rich are politicians this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
More than once, both the President and his deputy have told us that the campaigns are over and it’s time to work; only they were being naïve to the forces of politics and indeed the dynamics of our politics or perhaps it was a rhetoric to the opposition that was gaining steam with their calls of illegitimacy.
Whatever the case, we can’t, and we’ll not stop with useless politicking at the expense of real development until we address the fundamental flaws in our democratic system.
To begin with, elections in Kenya are an expensive affair. It doesn’t matter how passionate you are about this country or the amazing ideas you have; if you’re not rich, simply forget it. And it’s partly the reason why women can’t compete with men in competitive elections. They don’t have the so called ‘war chest’ that can allow them to tanga tanga around in a bid to put up a good fight when the day of reckoning comes, but I digress.
The foundation of our politics; thanks to the founding fathers is based on little or no ideology but realpolitik-which is rather skewed towards Machiavellianism. It’s the reason our politics has never really been about ideologies or us the politicians like to call it, issues. It’s the reason these forefathers could amass wealth without any moral dilemma and subsequently pass these ‘values’ to the next set of leaders.
It’s quite sad that our political forefathers were so allergic to democracy that they killed multiparty politics right at birth-which could have given us a chance to campaign on ideologies as the country had yet to be galvanized around tribalism and or cronyism. By the time President Moi was giving us multiparty politics as a ‘gift,’ it was already a poisoned chalice.
The only thing to celebrate after 26years of multiparty politics is that a dictator left power-or so we thought-and that we’ve had at the very least, a new constitution-which those in power cherry-pick sections they will obey and live by.
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