In
Kenya, it is not an ideology that moves the people to engage
politically with one another; instead, it is the personality at the head
of a political outfit. Calling them parties does a great disservice to
the political party traditions of developed democracies. What
differentiates Raila Odinga from Uhuru Kenyatta or William Ruto or
Musalia Mudavadi or George Saitoti is not the strength of his political
message, even where he has a compelling one; it is the fact that he is
seen to represent the aspirations of one of Kenya's forty-two or so
ethnic communities. What motivates the men and women who swear fealty to
Messrs Mudavadi, Kenyatta, Ruto or Saitoti is not the strength of these
men's political convictions but the fact that as the apparent
representatives of their ethnic communities they are articulating the
aspirations of their people because no one else will or can.
When Musalia Mudavadi and, before him, William Ruto had a falling out with Raila Odinga, they claimed that it was because the Orange Democratic Movement had become a cult in which the Prime Minister could no wrong. They claimed that the party was slowly being stifled of dissent with Raila Odinga's voice being the only legitimate one. According to the two, despite their holding high offices in the party as deputy leaders, their views were being ignored and that they had found it impossible to inculcate a culture of democracy in the party. Their decision to leave, and to lead ODM MPs away from the party, they claimed further, was in response to the continued reluctance of pro-Odinga party functionaries and officials to ensure that all voices in the party received their fair share of attention and consideration. At no point did they claim that they disagreed with the party leader's ideological stance or his political philosophy. The reason, perhaps, is that there is none to disagree with.
Between 1969 when the Kenya People's Union was banned and 1991 when Section 2A of the former Constitution was repealed, Kenya was a one-party state with no need for an ideology or a unifying political philosophy other than the whims and caprices of the President who was also the Chairman of KANU and all its organs. President Jomo Kenyatta used the party as a personal weapon to reward or punish its members. He used the structures of the party and the state to control the fate of millions. It became a vehicle for personal aggrandisement; in his reign, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and his family became fabulously wealthy. As did his successor, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi, whose twenty-four years in power can only be remembered for the Nyayo Philosophy of peace, love and unity; this was not a political philosophy or an ideology. Had the party been democratised in 1991 and all voices permitted an equal chance of being heard, perhaps the past twenty years would have turned out very differently.
What we have experienced since 1992 has been the steady decline of the concept of the common good. What we have today is an extreme version of what Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania termed a "man eat man society" writ large in the political arena. The political calculations that Raila Odinga and his rivals engage in in obsessive detail boils down to the unity of ethnic communities in order to guarantee the ascendancy of one man to the highest pinnacle of political power in Kenya and not the nurturing of an ideology that may survive its author and that may give the people a rational basis for determining who will and who will not rule the forty-two ethnic communities. In forgetting, or ignoring, why political parties exist, all presidential candidates mouth the platitudes that Kenyans want to hear but not what they need to hear. Their message has consistently been about themselves and not the people they claim to represent. It is the theatre of the absurd.
When Kenyans line up to cast their ballots at the next general election, they will not care whether the men and women they cast their votes for are capitalists, communists, socialists, Christian democrats, conservatives or liberals; all they will care for is whether 'their man" (or woman) will get the chance to eat and through him, their chance to eat, vicariously or otherwise. It is for this reason that despite lofty credentials as champions of the Second Liberation or as holdovers of the KANU Era that these men and women are wholly unfit to lead. When one of them is eventually elected as Kenya's fourth President, it will be a cruel irony that despite their claims to democracy or the common welfare of all, they all intend to rule as Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki have ruled.
When Musalia Mudavadi and, before him, William Ruto had a falling out with Raila Odinga, they claimed that it was because the Orange Democratic Movement had become a cult in which the Prime Minister could no wrong. They claimed that the party was slowly being stifled of dissent with Raila Odinga's voice being the only legitimate one. According to the two, despite their holding high offices in the party as deputy leaders, their views were being ignored and that they had found it impossible to inculcate a culture of democracy in the party. Their decision to leave, and to lead ODM MPs away from the party, they claimed further, was in response to the continued reluctance of pro-Odinga party functionaries and officials to ensure that all voices in the party received their fair share of attention and consideration. At no point did they claim that they disagreed with the party leader's ideological stance or his political philosophy. The reason, perhaps, is that there is none to disagree with.
Between 1969 when the Kenya People's Union was banned and 1991 when Section 2A of the former Constitution was repealed, Kenya was a one-party state with no need for an ideology or a unifying political philosophy other than the whims and caprices of the President who was also the Chairman of KANU and all its organs. President Jomo Kenyatta used the party as a personal weapon to reward or punish its members. He used the structures of the party and the state to control the fate of millions. It became a vehicle for personal aggrandisement; in his reign, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and his family became fabulously wealthy. As did his successor, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi, whose twenty-four years in power can only be remembered for the Nyayo Philosophy of peace, love and unity; this was not a political philosophy or an ideology. Had the party been democratised in 1991 and all voices permitted an equal chance of being heard, perhaps the past twenty years would have turned out very differently.
What we have experienced since 1992 has been the steady decline of the concept of the common good. What we have today is an extreme version of what Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania termed a "man eat man society" writ large in the political arena. The political calculations that Raila Odinga and his rivals engage in in obsessive detail boils down to the unity of ethnic communities in order to guarantee the ascendancy of one man to the highest pinnacle of political power in Kenya and not the nurturing of an ideology that may survive its author and that may give the people a rational basis for determining who will and who will not rule the forty-two ethnic communities. In forgetting, or ignoring, why political parties exist, all presidential candidates mouth the platitudes that Kenyans want to hear but not what they need to hear. Their message has consistently been about themselves and not the people they claim to represent. It is the theatre of the absurd.
When Kenyans line up to cast their ballots at the next general election, they will not care whether the men and women they cast their votes for are capitalists, communists, socialists, Christian democrats, conservatives or liberals; all they will care for is whether 'their man" (or woman) will get the chance to eat and through him, their chance to eat, vicariously or otherwise. It is for this reason that despite lofty credentials as champions of the Second Liberation or as holdovers of the KANU Era that these men and women are wholly unfit to lead. When one of them is eventually elected as Kenya's fourth President, it will be a cruel irony that despite their claims to democracy or the common welfare of all, they all intend to rule as Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki have ruled.
No comments:
Post a Comment