On the Political Party

The political party in Kenya is less a party and more an exclusive members' club where the needs of the members are at the mercy of the man with the fattest wallet. A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating its own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions. Parties often espouse an expressed ideology or vision bolstered by a written platform with specific goals, forming a coalition among disparate interests.

Take, for example, the United Republican Party. Formed as a last resort for the ambitions of William Ruto, its ideology or platform seems to revolve only around Mr Ruto's desire to deny the Prime Minister the opportunity to ascend to the presidency after the general elections scheduled for 2012 (or 2013 if there is not action from Mr Odinga or the President, Mwai Kibaki). The Party of Action, recently formed by Raphael Tuju, the immediate former Member of Parliament for Rarieda and a former Minister for Foreign Affairs, ostensibly cares for the plight for the youth and the oppressed, yet it seems to have been formed for the sole purpose of sponsoring Mr Tuju's candidacy for the presidency. So too are NARC-K (Martha Karua), New FORD-K (Moses Wetangula), PNU (George Saitoti), and indeed, ODM (Raila Odinga). None of these parties, it seems, have a discernible ideology that energises them, other than the capture and retention of political power.

The main purpose behind an ideology is to offer either change in society, or adherence to a set of ideals where conformity already exists, through a normative thought process. Ideologies are systems of abstract thought applied to public matters and thus make this concept central to politics. Implicitly every political or economic tendency entails an ideology whether or not it is propounded as an explicit system of thought. It is how society sees things. This is not how Kenyans see things. Ideology in Kenya is a lost system; it has been abandoned either through neglect or through deliberate political action to strip the members of the party of their voice in the future and fate of their parties.

It is not possible for the implementation of the Constitution to be achieved if the political party remains the preserve of the ruling elite. In recent weeks, and up to the end of March 2012, political parties must ensure that they submit to the Registrar of Political Parties all documents that are required for the full registration, demonstrating that they have complied fully with the provisions of the Political Parties Act. But it is not enough to comply with the law; they must also demonstrate that they are capable of differentiating themselves from each other with clear policies, ideologies and manifestos. As it is, one could easily replace the names of one political party with another and none would be the wiser; they are cookie-cutter copies of one another. Indeed, I suspect that there must be a model political party constitution that they rely on for drafting the rules that govern their affairs.

Without a robust political party system, without a clash of ideologies, and without a robust public debate about the future of the political party in Kenya, we will be reduced to electing men and women on the basis of opinion polls and their perceived popularity, rather than on the strength or weakness of their arguments, programmes or ideologies. In other words, it will be business as usual. And in the short to medium term, we will continue to suffer political uncertainty and instability. This is not the basis for a sound economic renaissance or development.