The definition of "insanity"

Now that we are all committed to campaigning for the various elective posts in the national government at the 2027 general election, regardless of the fact that we have not implemented many of the promises we made to each other during the 2022 general election, it is time to revise some of my hobbyhorses. One of my obsessions is whether the system we are participating in right now is capable of identifying, promoting, nominating and electing qualified politicians to successfully stand in the general election and effective perform the functions of the State offices to which they are elected. My view, as always, is a mixed one, but the short answer is, "No."

Kenya inherited the Westminster style of politics from the English and, through several constitutional amendments and statutory tweaks, adapted it to the peculiar style that Jomo Kenyatta and the Kiambu Mafia promoted before and after Independence: the Balkanisation of Kenya into tribal fiefdoms with tribal satraps pledging the troth of their tribes to the president, and not to their own tribal interest. In return, the president would appoint the tribal satraps to high public office, usually the Cabinet but also assistant minister, chairman of the board of a parastatal, ambassador or diplomat of some kind, head of a powerful government organisation like the Kenya Police Force, and so on and so forth.

For nigh on forty years a majority of Kenyans believed that if their tribal satrap was "in government", they too, were "in government" and the fabulous wealthy their tribal satrap acquired during his tenure "in the government" was a reflection of the tribe's power and influence "in the government". Obviously, any casual observation of the country the past fifty years shows that this is not true. Urban areas, for their most part, benefited immensely from the "development budget". The rest of the country would get piecemeal "development" as and when the president deemed it necessary to secure a political goal. It had nothing to do with the power of their satrap or the needs of the people that a road or a school or a factory or a dam or a hospital or a university was built in their "area". All that mattered was that the president would get something out of it in the end.

This lesson appears not to have been learnt.

Chief Justice (Emeritus) Maraga has thrown his hat in the presidential election ring. For this, he has chosen the United Green Movement Party as his vehicle to State House. He has promised to "popularise and strengthen the party". It is sad that a man in his mid-seventies, who has been witnessed to epochal political transformations in this country, is continuing in the legacy of buying briefcases and thinking that he is the new broom that will sweep the Augean stables clean. When he fails - and he will fail - he will not have the necessary political education to understand why he failed.

There are no shortcuts to organising a people. It takes time, effort, money, charisma and, sometimes, violence, to get them to see that their fate can only be salvaged if they row int he same boat and in the same direction. The Hon. Mr. Maraga's political party of choice has been in existence only since 2019. In that time, it has done little, if anything at all, to "popularise and strengthen" itself. It has not established a system for subscription-based membership. It has obsessed itself with he "national leadership" and has done little, if anything, to establish grassroots leadership cadres and the village and ward levels. In my opinion, it is not a serious party regardless of its lofty ambitions.

The same is true of all the other political parties. Not one of them is a member-driven subscription-based political party. None of them prioritises the establishment, promotion, support and development of grassroots leadership cadres at villages or ward level. What is worse is that their total focus, to the exclusion of everything else, is the presidential election; all the other elections are of interest only to the candidates yet, in the balance, a member of a county assembly has the ability to improve your quality of life that is on an order of magnitude greater than what the president or county governor can do.

It is irrelevant that counties are organised, largely, on the basis of linguistic and ethnic identities; all of them suffer from the same dearth of political education, political leadership and political knowledge. If this doesn't change, then we will be repeating the same failed pattern of behaviour we have practiced since 1964 when Jomo Kenyatta pushed through the first constitutional amendment and the result will be the same failures we have endured since Independence.