By Javas Bigambo (February, 2023)
With the deafening drumbeats of celebration for a democracy in its puberty, Kenya hurtled to the 2022 general election, the seventh cycle since the birth of multiparty democracy in the country with 84 registered political parties.
Regardless of such numerous parties, ideological politics in Kenya have faced structural damage and political parties continue to suffer the caustic burden of founder’s capture.
When political parties are modelled as arteries for individualistic economic survival, the foundations of ideological standing get destroyed. That is why a political party’s top decision-making organ, the National Executive Committee or Council should be its ideological Ararat, whose flames should never go off.
The internal wrangles and recent coup in Jubilee Party come about as a living example of factions fighting for a party that has no ideological soul.
Neither the dethroned Secretary general Jeremiah Kioni nor the enthroned Acting Secretary General Kanini Kega has spoken about taking whatever standpoints on ideological basis. The former is defending his support for Azimio’s Raila Odinga and Party Leader Uhuru Kenyatta, while the latter is defending the gravitational drift towards Kenya Kwanza Coalition and the need to support President William Ruto’s government. Quintessentially, neither Jubilee “A” nor Jubilee “B” factions have any ideological DNA to which they fear being disinherited.
Political parties exist not just for political organisations, but with the aim of accessing power, governing the polity through social contract, and ameliorating the welfare of the people. These pursuits easily succeed with elaborate ideological grounding. That is why the Constitution contemplates and secures the right for one to “campaign for a cause”, and the Political parties (Amendment) Act through Section 6(2) demands a statement of “ideology” from every political party.
Political parties in Kenya that have elected members through general of by-election, proportionately benefit from Political Party Funding, another sacrifice by tax payers. This is premised on the institutionalisation of political parties through constitutional entrenchment, and the desire to have political parties and public entities, and not private property.
Government as a compound institution is a public entity, and should therefore be organised and managed by institutionalised public entities in the form of political parties or coalitions, not political parties that are personalised or that retain the form of private property.
On this basis, the public must demand the best and the highest level of decency, ideology and leadership from political parties, predicated on the Political party Funding railroad by the exchequer. Kenyans must not breathlessly survive heavy taxes and still find unfettered pleasure in genuflecting at political party founders and leaders merely for preservation of their serrated egos.
Based on the happenings in political parties, Kenyans need to invite themselves to national discourse on the implication of political party funding on the character of political party ownership, leadership and character.
Kenyans must be resolved to change the nature and character of political parties. The liberators should not be transformed into hatchet men and gifted destroyers of the very liberties and freedoms they are thought to believe in.
If we must come close to internal party democracy, we must go far from utility of goons as instruments of terror unleashed against those who hold alternative views, or party leaders choreographing in-fighting within parties. Organised disruptions through goons must no longer be the cherished art and science of political management of party affairs, being instrumentalised by ideological midgets within parties.
The golden age of political evil reigned during the subsistence of the strappado of the KANU regime, where the party’s ‘youth wingers’ prized as the party jewels, reigned terror on those who stood against the god-ruler of the party.
If socio-economic development and poverty reduction is the primary interest of political leaders, political parties should be driven by strong ideals, augmented by implementation governance once power is won, with policies based strictly on those party ideologies. Parties should be driven by sound, firm and observable ideological constructs, far from the court poetry and hero-worshiping arena most preferred by party leaders and profiteers of choreographed chaos.
Radicalised emptiness is the greatest threat to democracy after political dynasties. These two imposters are not likely to go away from Kenya anytime soon, given that the courts have now decreed that education is no longer a necessity and the backbone for holding any elective office in Kenya. The future is bright. Kenya will soon elect Governors and Senators and President who cannot understand budgets, intricate policy issues of effect fathom the concerns of public finance as outlined by the Controller of Budget of the Auditor General through their exhaustive reports. Ideological stagnation or emptiness leads to stagnation or moribund political parties.
It is sound, relatable and firm ideologies that will fuel growth of political parties, and have the best among its members prepared for party and national leadership. Presently, budding political careers die in the hands of insecure Party Leaders who engineer the downfall of vivacious candidates through stage managed sham party primaries, which are also disgraced by ‘direct nomination’ certificates dished out to ranking bootlickers and ideological debased party financiers under the aegis of the Party leader or Founder.
Codification of direct nomination through the Political parties Nomination Rules through Section 28 of the Elections Act, 2011 was a clever but brazen way of institutionalising highhandedness and constricting the freewill of voters to select their preferred party candidates.
Is it not absurd and laughable that political parties commit the most horrendous acts against fairness, justice and transparency during party primaries, then proceed to demand accurate, verifiable, transparent and spotless management of general elections by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission? Unbridled bunkum.
That is why it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to watch Azimio, through ODM, try to choke and ostracize its 9 elected Members of Parliament, who have recently shown pleasure in hobnobbing with President Ruto at State House Nairobi. Is there an ideological membrane that was raptured such that the renegade MPs crossed the isthmus between ideological extremes? Or is manipulation being disguised as loyalty?
ODM party did not incandescently reprimand them for departing from any ideological quarters, but for merely rejecting Azimio’s election denialism after Mr. Odinga lost election to UDA’s William Ruto. If the alleged disloyalty is what has led to their being banished, would it not be more sensible for political leaders to preach ecumenical loyalty to constitutionalism? The sneering party chorus against the renegade 9’s discomfiture is a dark lining on our golden democracy.
For Raila Odinga presently, his fireball and hankering are much about occupying State House than anything else. His recent pronouncements that “President Ruto should leave State House so that I occupy it” buttresses the argument that after entrenchment of multiparty democracy, which his father Jaramogi Adonijah Oginga Odinga and other frontline democracy stalwarts engineered, ideological politics have taken a snivelling beating, and now most political heads are merely in pursuit of self-actualization and aggrandizement.
Yes, political parties must in still discipline in their members and elected officials whom the party sponsored through its ticket, but such discipline based on political morality must be weighed on the scales of what amounts to the ‘greater good’ for the country. It should not be good for party leaders and governors only to interact with or meet the President, and a feral sin for other elected members or party officials to meet the President. Party membership should be based on clear ideological identities.
It is in the nurturing of leadership and tolerance of intellectual firepower that made Democratic Party’s Barack Obama to have historical clash of ideas as they battled for the party’s presidential ticket, and remained respectful friends within the party. Such clashes have been witnessed for decades within the Democratic party and the Republican Party in the USA to the admiration of global eyeballs.
Political parties should be breeding grounds for ideological and intellectual gymnastics, where the cooking pot of ideas should bring forth steamy ideas to inform unique party manifestos, which when implemented, will spur the country’s socio-economic growth to gain regional and global competitive edge.
The maximalist interpretation of political rights must be forever stretched to the limits of elasticity with regard to rights domiciled in Article 38 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, which rights are women and strengthened with the supportive rights and fundamental freedoms among which are association, opinion, conscience and speech, without the repressive tethers of pigeon-holed party leadership interests.
Political parties should encourage cross-party liaisons and cross-coalition liaisons for bi-partisanship on matters of national interest, for co-sponsorship of bills and programmatic linkages on matters of national interest. Crucial policy issues such as national reconciliation, famine crisis, climate change does not need seclusion. That is why party members and elected leaders need not be controlled like slaves aboard the Mayflower.
Javas Bigambo is a lawyer and political scientist, serving as the Managing Director at Interthoughts Consulting Ltd
Governance, Human Rights and Development in Africa 