Kenya’s politics is in a ferment, a state in which it has been for these past four years, and a visitor to these shores would be excused for concluding that an important election is in the offing in the next seven weeks instead of months.
But that is hardly news. We seem to have become inured to a condition that grips this country immediately after one election is concluded, for politicians start campaigning for the next instantaneously. It is a peculiar kind of madness that defies logic, unless one were to define overweening greed for power as an end in itself.
Let us put it this way: if the nature of campaigning going on at this very moment – volatile, crude and uncivilised – continues, one shudders to imagine what will happen in the next few months. The ugly conclusion is that things will get worse, leading to turmoil and, God forbid, political violence.
There is no attempt here to project pessimism for its own sake, but any optimism about the future must be based on realism, and right now the auguries are not very reassuring. After all, during every election cycle, high levels of intolerance turn into handy weapons for uncouth players to disenfranchise huge segments of society based on their ethnicity.
There is a major difference between political ambition and greed for power. While one is eminently valid, the other is totally negative. Unfortunately, politicians too often confuse the two, with dire consequences for Kenyans for whose interests they are ostensibly fighting.
Miserable existence
This leads to the inevitable conclusion that very few seekers-after-power are really interested in the well-being of their electorate; they are more interested in the spoils that this power brings. The genuine do-gooders are very few and not as well-respected as the looters, which means that the voters are the ones who create and sustain the monsters that eventually devour them.
For a couple of weeks towards the end of last year and the beginning of this one, we were spared the high-decibel cacophony that had been assaulting our ears for the longest time. The Christmas and New Year festivities gave us some respite and we could at least concentrate on the more helpful matters of spiritual well-being.
And then two prominent Kenyans, Charles Njonjo and Richard Leakey, died on the second day of the year and politicians paused for a while to think of their own mortality. But only for a while. On the fourth day, they were back on the hustings in full force, promising us all kinds of goodies once we elect them in August.
We know from experience that very few of the promises are likely to materialise in any manner to improve our miserable existence, but then it seems to be the job of politicians to take us for a ride and our fate to swallow everything we are fed and only spit out those that are hard to digest because they are being delivered by those who we have been socialised to hate in the past. In many ways, Kenyan voters have only themselves to blame for electing the wrong leaders, for the premises on which they do so are often-times highly impracticable.
If, for instance, you are promised manna from heaven and you swallow such crap whole knowing fully well that the age of miracles is long gone, then you are a glutton for punishment and should not turn round and blame those who recognised and used your naivety against you. You should be ready to accept that you goofed. But do Kenyans really do that?
Campaign euphoria
No, they immediately start looking for a convenient scapegoat instead of taking responsibility for the folly of their choices and learning from it. Their penchant for being taken in by campaign rhetoric can only be matched by the quality of the epithets they hurl at imaginary enemies when the pie in the sky fails to fall on their doorstep.
Last week’s events in Parliament are a fair pointer to the fact that on some issues, many Kenyans do not have any idea what is going on with the fellows they elect. Very few people, including yours truly, actually know why legislators have been fighting in Parliament for the past three days. All they know is that they have been treated to high drama in those hallowed precincts during which shouting and shoving have replaced sober debate. Shouldn’t someone take the trouble to explain to Kenyans what is really at stake and how it will affect them?
There is still time for voters to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is time for them to tell the difference between campaign euphoria and making rational electoral choices. In the next seven months, they should not make a mistake which they will regret at leisure – and five years is a very long time indeed.
It is time they started asking hard questions about the bountiful life they are being promised and the stark reality. No government is going to uplift them from destitution to prosperity through handouts. Only they can do so with their own hands. BY DAILY NATION