WHY WE NEED ELECTORAL REFORM IN KENYA

As any wise man will attest, no army in this world is strong enough to stop an idea whose time has come. Another variation is, “an invasion of armies can be resisted but an invasion of ideas cannot.”  This statement gained credence about 200 years ago when it was quipped by the famous playwright and poet Victor Marie Hugo. Another candid statement whose veracity shines ever so bright today as it did when it was uttered by liberal –minded American musician, activist and film maker Frank Zappa, ‘there is more buffoonery around than hydrogen unfortunately with a longer shelf life’. But I digress.

Kenya is a land of great dissimilitude and variance. On one hand we have quite a vibrant and highly educated population. Few are the countries in Africa that boast the kind of wholesome education that brings forth the all-round human capital as the one dished out in Kenya. For many years we have been known as the harbinger of ‘peace’ or rather ‘calm’. This wholesome reputation has seen many of our warring neighbours come to us to try to broker truces and sustainable peace processes. They even seek consultation on how we do it but being amiable guys we do not charge a fee, you only have to pay for your hotel rooms and cater for your delegation. Moreover, our economy has had more episodes of the upside rather than the downside and the Lord was gracious enough to embellish our land with a coterie of tourist attractions. The negative side is our unenviable record in the fight against poverty even for the employed, unemployment, free education that is free of learning and the conquering of a few diseases. A ruthlessly aggressive entrepreneurial culture that can aptly be described as capitalism without a human face is a norm for us. Others call it the man eat man phenomenon where as long as you make money without killing anyone or getting in jail then you have made yourself some smart money. Also rewarding of characters based on sycophancy-based loyalty sticks out for ridicule like a sore thumb. In a previous post I have mentioned all the virtues sacrificed by such a venture which I urge anyone interested to just track back and confirm. But where we fail miserably is our tackling of Electoral reform.

It hurt so bad that it literally seared off my conscience when I heard our apparently ‘democratically-elected’ president brush off talks about electoral reform with an un-statesmanlike flourish with a statement to the effect, “the election season is over, if you want to discuss electoral reform then do it with my duly-anointed successor in 2022.” This is a cause of malaise for me as I ask myself many questions. If a snake were to invade the sanctity of my bedroom, would I leave the house to the satisfaction of the snake or would I have driven it out? Why wouldn’t a democratically elected leader not want to further strengthen the credentials of a system which he is confident of and which duly gave him his mandate? What is our dear ‘Father of the nation’ engaging in that is so important that he cannot spare a day or two to mull the electoral future of a nation where he promises to be a honorable but still ordinary citizen after retirement? Does this guy really value a legacy? On the 8^th of August this nation went to the General Election. Despite the irreducible minimums implored by the opposition which were no doubt constructive additions being ignored, we still proceeded full speed ahead with an incomplete process. Consequently, the Presidential result of that poll was so tangled in a nebulous haze, unverifiable nay unjustifiable to such an extent that the venerable bench at the Supreme Court had no alternative but to call for a fresh presidential election.

The President-elect whose victory had been justifiably invitiated was beside himself with fury and consternation. At every twist and turn he referred to that bench created to referee our Electoral process as rascals, deviants, miscreants and a few other terms you can ill afford to utter in a ‘ruracio’ to describe either your future mother-in-Law’s facial appearance or mien if you are still in need of a wife! He threatened to deal with them after we finished going through the motions of the Elections. In adherence to the letter but not the spirit of the ruling he steam-rolled the IEBC urging them to finish ‘this thing’ fast so as to resume normal life. The part about adherence to the tenets of legitimacy, constitutionally laid guidelines and most importantly fix the errors that led to the nullification in the first place were of negligible consequence to Jubilee head-honchos. IEBC was prodded in the ribs. Opposition leader, Raila Odinga and his party saw this folly and chose to abstain, vacating the entire exercise. One Commissioner, a brave and conscientious lady, a laudable daughter of this land resigned when the allure of independence at the Electoral body varnished. The chairman appeared set to follow suit but ominously changed tune to assure that all was well. After that one could not statistically and with certitude ascertain where the ruling coalition stopped and the Electoral Commission began. A new petition to bar the poll was pole-axed by an incomprehensible and cosmetic ‘national holiday’ gazette just before the Election Day. The day came and went without as much as a whimper in the form of ceremony in many sections of the republic. As things stand right now the legitimacy of the president’s mandate is under question from large swathes of this nation, many who simply passed over the October 26^th event as an over glorified cassava harvesting day.  

As one who has even produced an entire video uploaded on YouTube urging all Kenyans to come out in force and make their voices heard electorally, egg is the only thing I have all over my face as commiseration for my troubles. We have heard allegations that despite no support from the census figures, a conglomeration of two mega-tribes and about three small ones usually suffices to yield an unassailable tyranny of numbers! What do the 38 odd ones form, a ‘tyranny of the willing down-trodden’? In token of that, and in good faith I sought to address the issue by making a clarion call to all adult citizens to never coop themselves up in the house on the material day but come out in force to assure of their futures electorally through the vote. Little did I know that the Election Matrix in Kenya had more elements than just the mere voter turn-out or the population size of the registered voters but other extraneous elements inclusive of but not restricted to weather, communication network reliability, integrity of transmission of raw data, will of the business community; the determinant of all being the guys tallying the results. To cut the long story short, we need Electoral reform not just for today but for posterity. Why should we waste whole days, running biro-pens rugged, putting marked papers into a bucket, have ink soiling our fingers then hold vigils waiting for a predetermined outcome? I am concerned that despite high intellectual acuity associated with many Kenyans, members of the winning side are usually blinded from both conscious introspection of the form and shape of their victory. They fail to ask this valuable question. Is this triumph the product of the same ballot papers they pain-stakingly queued to cast or just some cooked up statistics? In ecstasy they simply jubilate oblivious to an interrogation of the integrity of the figures they celebrate.  Are they not aware that the side of the towel that wipes your derriere today could be flipped over to wipe your face tomorrow?

As this is not the book of Lamentations penned by the under-appreciated Prophet Jeremiah, I will now give the reasons we need electoral reform:

• Despite the fallacies we hear out here about despotic, insecure and murderous individuals being called ‘strong-men’ in actual sense it takes an incorruptible, honest, God-fearing, loving, progressive and objective leader to run a democracy. One who is willing to freely and fairly accept the will of the populace without the need for bullying, cajoling, arm-twisting, intimidation, deceit and out-right violence to gain power. This can only be made possible when every incumbent makes it his principle agenda to improve on the previous system even in an infinitesimally small way.

•  There is nothing as important if not heart-warming as even the mere illusion of inclusivity. Kenya is currently a fractious lump of restless nation states with different tribal and cultural identities. We need reform to convert our election process from an ethnic census to an objective and policy-based initiative.

• ·       We need to greatly reduce the powers the current dispensation ‘arrogates’ to the Presidency. Consequently, the attainment for the presidency has become synonymous with the proverbial ‘reaching the promised land / Canaan.’ Thanks to our winner-takes-all system coupled with the inordinate love for primitive accumulation of wealth and the allure cast by affluence devoid of enterprise; strife for this singular seat takes on diabolical meaning. Winning becomes the chance to reward cronies, dish out positions to allies and ruthlessly punish all who did not vote for you even with economic extinction. This is a zero some affair as we cannot foster universal growth by segregation in improving regions in isolation instead of as a whole unit.  Historically, blood-letting has become the only predictable outcome of the presidential election in Kenya bar the 2002 one. Funerals are no way to grow a nation. Yet we continue cling to such puerile politics and still lay claim to wisdom!

• It is a Constitutional obligation as per Chapter 7 Article 82 to continually improve and foster the autonomy of the IEBC. So let no one purport that it is PR for him to engage in this much needed noble venture. It is not a body cast in stone and ought to be dynamic to flow with the times and as per the wishes of the citizens of the republic. An important point to our leaders is that the law was made for the people and not the other way round.

• As stated above large sections have of this country feel so left out of their rightful share of the national cake as to mull the possibility of secession whether amicable or otherwise. This is usually a painful process but the threat of pain is scant intimidation to one who feels he has nothing to lose. Instead of the no election reform talk, a responsible president would seek to heal rifts in the nation after such a divisive process.

• The parity as envisaged by the gender-rule is yet to be attained. Deliberations and a serious plan of action need to be formulated to this end.

• Electoral malpractices need to be clamped down upon. Abuse of state resources, campaign rallies led by civil servants, intimidation and beguiling of voters are ills that have to be seriously and in actual austerity dealt with. Incitement to violence should not just be frowned upon but be grounds for disqualification from elections forthwith ‘por-aeturnum’. As one Nicolo Machiavelli once averred, “For humans only punishment and enforcement can engender good behavior.”

•   The move to both an electronic and futuristic voting system is something that has to be accorded the solemn gravity it deserves. Nations near and far are modernizing to have Electronic polling systems. Kenya, the market leader in many aspects cannot afford to be a pedestrian in this regard as her peers motor ahead to modernization if not digitization. Every system like a suit of armour has chinks. We should work to improve on our fallibilities so as to improve our credibility rating. We should not just procure systems and arrogantly seek to abuse the attendant Super-Administrator status on offer to subvert the will of the electorate. For the non-ICT practitioners, the Super-admin has the privilege to alter anything and everything including the data in a computer networking system. It is this immoral behaviour, callous in form that is the real reason perennially our presidential poll becomes a macabre blood bath festival.

As a means to secure his legacy, I would urge Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta to expeditiously call to table a multi-spectral forum on Electoral reform. As such is an ultimate surety, it would augur well for him to mid-wife the process because as surely as day follows night reform will triumph over conservation of the status-quo. Back in the day slave trade, apartheid and colonialism flourished but they all crumbled. We the august Catholic Church resisted ecclesiastical reforms but Martin Luther ringed the changes in our evangelism. Your political mentor, Daniel T. Moi entrenched a de-jure one-party state which eventually capitulated and the purveyors of democracy had their way. Belligerence consequent to majority notwithstanding, we must accept that electoral fraud can never be a conduit to yield leadership that befits the image of our heritage of splendour.

THE DAY OUR HSC LOST ITS SHINE

H

SC is an acronym for the Head of State Commendation. It is recognition awarded by the President of Kenya as reverence for outstanding or distinguished services rendered to the nation by individuals in various facets of society. This is ostensibly on advice of a National Honours and Awards Committee in the President’s office. No less the current president is on record offering profuse yet pedestrian lamentations about corruption cartels even he is powerless to act on in this same office. However, this may be a minor blip not meant to debase the integrity of this committee. Memories of the Greek legend Sisyphus who was condemned to a bog-standard life of pushing a boulder uphill only to watch it without ceremony do the downhill slalom comes to mind.

The day was the 12^th of December 2017. It is the Independence Day for the Republic of Kenya, popularly known as Jamhuri day. Chronologically, this one was our 54^th. This is quintessentially supposed to be the most important day in the Kenyan national calendar, but events this year have only to be confined to the nadirs of living memory. This year the day had many peculiarities, not less the low turn-out of Kenyans many who feel they may not have gained anything from this independence. Historically, our forefathers were in the struggle for independence with the aim to get out of Poverty, Illiteracy and disease which they felt had been let rife on them thanks to foreign occupation. Their land was seized and all factors of commerce were delivered to them only in a trickle. To most intents and purposes these aims have not been achieved. Many Kenyans feel disenfranchised because their voices had been doused electorally by the announcement of a not so popular incumbent as their president for a fresh mandate. I shall not pay credence to the absurdity that occurred on the 26^th October as I risk engaging in an unavailing discourse on a nullity. I would rather discuss King Julien day or fly a kite!

Electoral fatigue had seared every muscle and sinew of the populace of the Republic. Many enterprises had been pushed to the limits of existence by the politicking. Many could not let go the chance to take their much deserved rest. In recent times they have had to deal with innumerable upheavals. What with the weekly burying of kinsmen, innocent victims of disproportionate, callous and extrajudicial execution by the same Police service tasked with their protection? For the survivors teargas, burning tyres and barricaded motorways had become the staple. Also the opposition leader; who many feel was the real victor in the Electoral race was busy threatening to either constitutionally or otherwise swear himself into power, the 5^th President of Kenya. To add to that unemployment which has left many disillusioned, vulnerable, restless and destitute. Everything that could go wrong just obeyed Murphy’s Law to add impetus to the simmering cauldron that was the careening of this day into the deeper echelons of the absurd.

Everything that I have described above pales in comparison to the spectacle that transpired on the material day. Everything was tailored to script and all that had to be pretentiously applauded was. Then came the time for the award of the Head of State Commendations where everything tapered to a hot mess. Shock and consternation is the only emotion that greeted anyone who awaited acts of valour, patriotism and enterprise to be rewarded. We had deserving candidates like Fatuma Zarika and Joshua Oigara who were awarded this high honour based on great achievement and celebration of merit. We cheered those to no end. Those are surely not the grouse of this piece.

President Uhuru Kenyatta in shock at the list presented before him

The raison d’etre of this post was the list of awardees rife with undeserving characters who I will not denigrate this piece by mentioning in name. Every cadre of the abysmal was exalted to high heavens. For all I could gather, that list reeked of the acrid stench of ethnic chauvinism. An inordinate number of individuals were feted for merely just being in politically correct tribal groupings at the right time. Who really chose where they were to be born anyway? Characters whose only claim to fame is preaching for ‘peace’ without Truth and Justice were cream of the crop. Others were people who suffer from incorrigible amnesia of the facts of nationhood. Hypocritical, conniving and chameleonistic men and women were commemorated as the true sons of our soil. Not to forget characters who vociferously in text dabbled in the mighty abomination of attempting to publicly embarrass the few venerable practitioners of the legal profession in the nation, possessing the grit of heart and mind to do what is right even against the grain of insurmountable opposition from the incumbency. We adjudged to be honest the very intellectual dishonesty that is the scourge of this nation. Others were feted for being parochial ideologues and sycophants basically regurgitating the will of the ruling coalition whether to the detriment of Kenya or not. On that fateful afternoon, we reveled in mediocrity and apotheosized primitive accumulation of wealth without enterprise. We in negative faith worshiped at the altar of nihilistic vanity. We virtually etched in marble the chronicles of a guy who was nursing a hangover on the polling queue while stuffing his face silly with a puree of maize and beans. Collectively, we profaned the name of the Lord by apportioning honour to religious leaders who preach anything else but the authentic gospel of Jesus Christ. We reviled heroism choosing to carouse the cowardice if not indignity of morally reprehensible characters. We chastised professionalism choosing to proffer song and dance to the agents of favouritism, tribalism and malice. We built a shrine in honour of injustice and cremated our national values, pilfering those ashes to the four winds of the earth. We were so lost in raucous cheer of those who sharpened their weapons to protect cabals & cartels that suckle the life-blood of this country rather than trumpet the feats of unsung heroes; teachers who whet the minds that build commerce and industry. We castigated service all the while fanning the self-effacing flame that is the grandeur of the big-man syndrome. It was a great dishonor to our heritage of splendour to accord any kind of honour to such undeserving characters.

I have so many questions which may not all get asked in the bounds of this piece:

1.      Where in this scheme was the award for the brave, distinguished and conscientious Kenyan lady Roselyn Akombe who did the unheralded singularity in Kenyan public life? She unflinchingly resigned from a constitutional commission in neglect of attractive perks and all, an oddity in Kenya.

2.      What award was given to the young ladies who selflessly gave up their own lives in a heart-rending attempt to save their colleagues from the inferno that engulfed the dormitories at Moi Girls High School, Nairobi?

3.     Were the Malkia Strikers feted?

4.     Where was the award to the faceless majority who braved hunger, cold, snakes, hyenas, tribal militia to turn up at the polling stations twice in 60 days?

5.     Where was post-humous pride and honour for the unflinching souls that defied police bullets to protest the malaise that we all admit is the undoing of our electoral system?

6.     Where was the award appropriated to the Chief Justice and three of his Supreme court colleagues who in good conscience refused to uphold the unverifiable and totally entangled if not nebulous results of a bungled poll?

7.     Now that we were celebrating the bizarre; where was one for the slay-queen of the year, the bank tunnel-diggers, abominable narco-preneurs and all the teeming shisha-heads?

8.     Where were awards for techie Kennedy Kachwanya, The No-chills-blog guy or Cyprian Nyakundi guys who blog on issues of importance to the down-trodden proletariat?

9.     Have Baimungi M’ Marete and General Chui ever been singled out to be celebrated for the sacrifices they gave to liberate this nation and afterwards calling out the nascent government of the day for disproportionate land allocation system post-independence? They were basically the first opposition entities this country has known.

10.  Where was an award for Miguna Miguna, the unrelenting live-wire opposition battering ram and a voice of reason?

I could go on and on but what will be the wisdom in that? Is the institution of the Presidency still a symbol of Unity for this country or just a conduit to solemnize and cajole the egos of cronies? To enjoy with partisan friends the largesse of state power while you still have it, with limited regard to the taxpayer bank-rolling it and all. This is a detrimental and fatal flaw in our ‘winner-takes-all’ political system. What happened was an absolute travesty of the reward scheme, utterly incomprehensible and deemed abhorrent by any Kenyan of good faith. The problem with such a reward proposition is that it breeds a dearth of excellence. Laziness is labeled exemplary, responsibility is not and blame is to be shared and thrown around like dodge ball. People will feel that the only way to get ahead in life is by playing harlot to the ‘big man’ and hope that the crumbs of good fortune fall from his table to their own.

There will no longer be any need for enterprise as you will ultimately end up where you started if you are not well-connected so to speak, a phenomenon I personally find nauseatingly as repugnant as the worship of idols. Young men and women will no longer cherish the value of hard work, smart investment and timely action instead engaging in some asinine stunts in social media with the goal of attaining fame & fortune to nobody’s benefit. Short time pecuniary gain has gained greater traction as opposed to the toil and sacrifice of building a long-term, sustainable and replicable system for success. The draw of composing and performing patriotic songs will be in abasement at the altar of short-term, money-spinning deification of mere mortals whose character is not even worth the amplifier in the studio where those songs were recorded. People who are steeped in virtue will be shunted aside as they watch their undignified and feckless compatriots get ahead. Impartiality and objectivity have become foreign attributes and the butt of jokes in the current Kenyan political dispensation; which to all patriots is a shame, testament to the deplorable depths we have allowed ourselves to sink as a society.

You must have been embarrassed silly and thought you were watching a cringe-worthy horror movie. The Black, Red, White and Green lights of our flag were nullified by the day-long eclipse of the bilge on show. Nevertheless, you live in Kenya my man. Peculiarities and idiosyncrasies are the standard-bearer everywhere and defiance of logic a badge of honour. Take heart my friends as here; more often than not fact is stranger than fiction.