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.