How
much will the parries spend on the nominations due on the seventeenth
of January? It is a colossal financial and logistical exercise to
nominate quite possibly tens of thousands of candidates in all the
political parties contesting the 2013 general election. It remains vague
where all these parties are finding the financing for not just the
nominations but the campaigns for the general election. Kenyans, as is
their wont, have turned a blind eye and stony silence to the sources of
all the money that will be spent in this election season. Indeed, some
respected economists are predicting that inflation will inch up a point
or two due to the flood of money that will flow through the economy over
the next three months.
Kenya's campaign finance law remains unread, un-discussed and unknown. Kenyans simply don't seem interested in the mechanics of electing their representatives. The Tenth Parliament was very good at distracting Kenyans from what went on in the National Assembly, what with their constant tinkering with the Political Parties Act and the Elections Act. It might be that our education of the political and electoral process is an on-going exercise and that we are evolving slowly as an informed electorate, but at times it feels as if the evolution is akin to the leap from primordial ooze to the first high order organisms: it's taking too damn long.
The political process is necessarily complex and only the urban sophisticate has the time, the wherewithal and the determination to update himself on the intricate details of the process. But for this country to advance politically and economically, Kenyans must get over their inferiority complex about learning and educate itself on the process. It is the only way that we can hold our political betters to account for their sins of omission or commission. We must educate ourselves on not just the Constitution, but the laws regulating the political process and the constitutions of individual political parties that seek to nominate men and women to reign over us.
It is irresponsible that we do not know, or speak, of the sources of funding for political parties. Where do we imagine this money comes from? The Tooth Fairy? That would imply that millions of Kenyans are going about toothless, just like their Registrar of Political Parties! Rumours have swirled for years that much of the money being poured into political campaigns comes from dubious sources including the drug barons that never seem to get caught. Some even claim that "computer errors" in financial estimates of the national government are merely cover for massive flight of national revenue into private pockets. I shudder to imagine that Colombian, Afghani and Mexican drug lords are laundering their ill-gotten wealth through Kenya's political institutions or that all the Anglo-leasings, Goldenbergs, KKV scandals, maize scandals and the rest of them are merely cover for the pilfering of our tax shillings for the sake of perpetuating political careers that should ideally be consigned to the ash-heap of political history.
The nominations that take place this week are momentous because for the first time, they are being done in the full glare of the cameras and with one of the most massive participation of Kenyans in history. Those that emerge victorious, certificates of nomination in hand, will have demonstrated that they have the capacity to raise the millions required to triumph on the fourth of March and that they have the capacity to marshal lethargic and apathetic Kenyans to their cause. They will also demonstrate that political parties are coming of age; the days of direct nomination, at least for the major parties, are a thing of the past. Doubts, however, of the sincerity of the party leaders and their ardent acolytes will continue to float if Kenyans are not informed about the sources of the billions that will be poured on the seventeenth.
Kenya's campaign finance law remains unread, un-discussed and unknown. Kenyans simply don't seem interested in the mechanics of electing their representatives. The Tenth Parliament was very good at distracting Kenyans from what went on in the National Assembly, what with their constant tinkering with the Political Parties Act and the Elections Act. It might be that our education of the political and electoral process is an on-going exercise and that we are evolving slowly as an informed electorate, but at times it feels as if the evolution is akin to the leap from primordial ooze to the first high order organisms: it's taking too damn long.
The political process is necessarily complex and only the urban sophisticate has the time, the wherewithal and the determination to update himself on the intricate details of the process. But for this country to advance politically and economically, Kenyans must get over their inferiority complex about learning and educate itself on the process. It is the only way that we can hold our political betters to account for their sins of omission or commission. We must educate ourselves on not just the Constitution, but the laws regulating the political process and the constitutions of individual political parties that seek to nominate men and women to reign over us.
It is irresponsible that we do not know, or speak, of the sources of funding for political parties. Where do we imagine this money comes from? The Tooth Fairy? That would imply that millions of Kenyans are going about toothless, just like their Registrar of Political Parties! Rumours have swirled for years that much of the money being poured into political campaigns comes from dubious sources including the drug barons that never seem to get caught. Some even claim that "computer errors" in financial estimates of the national government are merely cover for massive flight of national revenue into private pockets. I shudder to imagine that Colombian, Afghani and Mexican drug lords are laundering their ill-gotten wealth through Kenya's political institutions or that all the Anglo-leasings, Goldenbergs, KKV scandals, maize scandals and the rest of them are merely cover for the pilfering of our tax shillings for the sake of perpetuating political careers that should ideally be consigned to the ash-heap of political history.
The nominations that take place this week are momentous because for the first time, they are being done in the full glare of the cameras and with one of the most massive participation of Kenyans in history. Those that emerge victorious, certificates of nomination in hand, will have demonstrated that they have the capacity to raise the millions required to triumph on the fourth of March and that they have the capacity to marshal lethargic and apathetic Kenyans to their cause. They will also demonstrate that political parties are coming of age; the days of direct nomination, at least for the major parties, are a thing of the past. Doubts, however, of the sincerity of the party leaders and their ardent acolytes will continue to float if Kenyans are not informed about the sources of the billions that will be poured on the seventeenth.
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