The ushering in of the Kenya Constitution 2010 heralded a number of reforms in the economic, political and social spheres of the country. I listened to both President Mwai Kibaki’s and Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s new year messages as each expressed his desire to see a peaceful transition and elections this year and felt cheated. Reason? Despite the reforms so far, the the real policy and ideological shift needed to usher in real reforms are yet to take place.
Our political parties system, the main cause of tensions is still intact. The same people who have dominated Kenya’s political and by extension economic systems, are the ones in charge of the reform process of the country. It is unlikely that these families and personalities with their vested interests will in any way bring reforms as they are the beneficiaries of the old skewed system that has seen them dominate.
With elections due later in the year, little attention has been to reform the political system. The reluctance and lack of interest in implementing the Political Parties Act will likely lead to a situation where the same individuals and parties continue to dominate both the county, national and senate systems even under the new constitution.
Without structures as envisaged by the drafters of the Act which was supposed to bring some sanity to the police field, the country will continue wallowing in the mess that has existed since the return of multi parties—political parties that operate like the personal fiefdoms of certain founding politicians and which remain dormant in between elections only to clamour for funds when elections draw near. Majority of these parties cannot even meet the minimum requirements needed to get a share of the Sh200 million set aside for the parties.
Without information about the political parties’ sources of funding, expenditure, membership and other details, the Kenyan voter is left at the mercy of those who fund the parties. The politics of the party are dictated by those who hold the purse strings and once the party is successful at elections, it continues to serve the interests of the moneybags and not to the citizens.
In such a situation, the culture of handouts continues to be entrenched and the marginalisation of women, youth and other special interest groups continues. For the Act to rein in some of the political parties’ excesses, it should for starters provide public access to the register of the funders of political parties. Kenyans need to be educated on how political parties will be required to fill in the various positions that have been created under the Constitution—which parties will be required and meet the threshold to nominate.
Already, several parties are already holding elections, without following the new rules while others are making pre-election coalition arrangements with a total disregard of the law. In such a situation, will the registrar of political parties order a repeat election. Which are the professional bodies that are allowed to make nominations to the various constitutional offices, bearing in mind that many of the current bodies, specifically trade unions have no transparent election systems and their leadership is in contention. In such a situation, how will they nominate individuals to the positions?
Have we educated Kenyans enough on run offs should the first round of elections not produce a clear winner or are we likely to see people going into the streets refusing to participate? What happens to public officers publicly campaigning for political parties and using public resources to do so? What penalties exist to punish political parties who nominating individuals of questionable character as candidates?
Bwire works with ARTICLE 19
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