The trouble with the word "goon"

The Cambridge Dictionary defines "goon" as a violent criminal who is paid to hurt or threaten people. It does not define goonism because as we know, an -ism is a set of beliefs. Violent crimes committed for hire are not a set of beliefs; they are actions punishable under law. So it is interesting to see how invested Kenyans are in defining violent crimes-for-hire as a belief system by insisting on calling them "goonism".

There isn't a Kenyan general election since 1992 that was not accompanied by violence. The 1992, 1997 and 2007 general elections were the most violent, but that does not hide the fact that the 2002, 2013, 2017 and 2022 general elections were not violent as well. What is becoming more and more commonplace is that the electoral violence is almost exclusively related to the presidential election. It is rare to hear the supporters of county assembly election candidates waging violent running battles in the streets these days, though the potential is always there.

What is also changing is that presidential election candidates understand the high risks hiring militia has become. In 1992, 1997 and 2007, the violent crimes were committed by gangs armed with what the Kenyan news media describe as "crude weapons". Today, the risks of militia being armed with small arms and light weapons - firearms like sidearm and rifles - no one wants to pay for a violent armed militia that can turn on you after the election when you inevitably fail to keep your end of the bargain. Just think of the violent extra-judicial campaign Mwai Kibaki's government waged against the Mungiki militia after the 2002 general election.

Since at lest June 2024, Kenyan politicians have hired goons to commit acts of violence against their rivals and the supporters of their rivals. In 2025 and 2026, during the 2024 anti-Budget protests and the anniversary of the protests in 2025, armed motorcycle gangs were allegedly hired to violently attack the so-called Gen Z protestors. Some have whispered darkly that 2024, 2025 and 2026 were incubators for different forms of goons-for-hire activities, seeing which ones would keep protestors down without spiralling out of control.

These violent criminal offenders must be distinguished from peaceable demonstrators participating in a public assembly that has turned riotous to quote section 81 of the Penal Code. So far, even the Government admits that the demonstrations are usually peaceable in nature until hired goons infiltrate the assemblies and incite a riot, sometimes against the demonstrators and sometimes against the public and sometimes against institutions of the Government. Who hires the goons remains hotly contested though names of county governors and principal secretaries are consistently associated with the criminal offenders. These allegations are yet to be tested fully during a criminal trial.

We should not be willing to participate in any public discourse that camouflages the violent offences that are being committed against the people participating in legitimate political activities whether those activities are political and election campaign rallies or demonstrations against the Government, Government officials, Government policies or pro-Government political candidates. "Goon" and "goonism" is an attempt to hide the fact that there is at least one person who has hired violent criminal offenders to commit acts of violence against political rivals - and has gotten away with his crimes. If we are to learn any lessons from the crimes committed by armed militia in 1992, 1997 and 2007, it is to describe the offences for what they are - not hide those crimes behind goofy-sounding English.

Can we make radically honest choices in 2027?

A person is qualified to be elected as the president of Kenya if that person is qualified to be elected as a member of Parliament. The word "qualified" here is misleading. What it should say is that a person is eligible to be elected as president if that person is eligible to be elected as an MP. When we think of qualifications, we almost always think of academic and professional credentials and professional or work-related experience.

I say all this to revise my previous positions on who is qualified and who isn't qualified to be president of Kenya. This is a job unlike any other in leadership and there is no blueprint for who will be a good president and who will not. Regardless of what boosters and naysayers will say, Kenyan presidents have not been all bad or all good; they have done the job on the basis of their experience, knowledge and the circumstances of the day. There is no check-list that we can apply to say that if they had these qualifications, then they would have done a better job than the job they eventually did.

So there is no way to determine whether Judge Maraga, Senator Sifuna or any of the other ambitious politicians will make a good or bad president. We can only hope that they will be good presidents. However, based on what they have done, and how they have behaved, and how they have comported themselves, in the offices they have occupied (or continue to occupy), we can make informed decisions about whether or not to cast a ballot in their favour if they are ever included in the presidential ballot at the next general election.

Judge Maraga, to the best of my knowledge, had a largely blameless tenure as a judge, as the second President of the Supreme Court and the 14th Chief Justice of Kenya. Senator Sifuna, despite being elected to the largely ineffectual Senate of Kenya, has done a good job of being senator and only the wickedly uncharitable think he has been bad at the job. Also, as an official of the ODM Party, he ran an efficient political party machinery and if it wasn't for the succession fiasco after the death of his party leader, he seemed set to serve as secretary-general until at least the general election. On those grounds alone, they are eminently qualified. However, nothing they have done in the previous jobs is any sort of guarantee that they will be good presidents or any sort of prediction that they will be bad presidents.

Presidential candidates can do much to build confidence in their candidacies. They can surround themselves with competent men and women. They can build party and political infrastructure to communicate their political visions and ideas. They can respond to political events with a view to solidifying their political powers. They can avoid scandals or, when scandals inevitable find them, take decisive action that paints them in a positive light. They can eschew tribal mathematics and promote inclusivity and nationhood. There are dozens upon dozens of decisions and choices they can make to demonstrate the kind of political leaders they are and if they do a good enough job of it, the voters may choose them over their rivals.

But as Kenya has found out, since at least the Kibaki presidential election, campaign talk is cheap. The speed with which Kibaki's politics became a byword for tribalism and corruption is sometimes shocking to see in retrospect. His presidential campaign engendered great confidence in the Opposition. He was surrounded by stalwarts of the Second Liberation, despite one or two very bad applies (Mr. John Michuki readily comes to mind). No one thought that his Cabinet would descend so swiftly into Kanu-style tribalism and corruption (A minister saying "go slow" over the Anglo-Leasing Scandals remains jarring even today). This would culminate in the worst political violence in a decade, leaving hundreds dead and tens of thousands displaced from their homes. How he governed as president could not be deciphered from his credentials but could, perhaps, have been predictable from his political history, especially his political history between 1988 and 1992.

So even as we are bombarded by billions of clickable AI slop about the virtues of the 2027 candidates, we should maintain a healthy scepticism about the men and women selling their political agendas to us. Not everything they promise will be done. Not every accusation levelled against them is true. We should, instead, reflect on what our true values and principles, as individual voters, actually are. If we are content with sharp practices and unethical conduct, then it doesn't matter whom we elect in 2027. But if we still believe in the values and principles that were instilled in us when we were children - honesty, hard work, diligence and perseverance - then we should make radically honest choices in 2027, even if it means that tribal satraps and their coteries end up behind bars.