By GILBERT MUYUMBU
Posted Sunday, February 19 2012 at 19:02
Posted Sunday, February 19 2012 at 19:02
The coming General Election provides Kenyans with yet another opportunity to steer the country towards the direction they feel is appropriate.
Many scholars hold that although elections appear to be a ritual that does not turn into tangible benefits for poor voters, they still have the capability to change things for most social interests, including those of the poor.
Therefore, it is how elections are used that either makes them result into meaningful change or not. Looking at the example of Kenya, it is the elections of 2002 that pulled the country out of Kanu’s economic decay and set it on a path of recovery.
So, how can the different social interests in Kenya use the forthcoming election?
In past elections, the criterion the Kenyan voter used to choose leaders at the ballot box included ethnic identity, bias against women candidates, electoral violence, and bribery.
This ignored the real issues that should inform the evaluation of the performance of elected leaders.
Instead of, for instance, looking at how many Bills a member of Parliament sponsored to respond to his/her constituents’ needs, the Kenyan voter considered how “close” the MP was to an ethnic kingpin.
It is this habit that motivated close to 40 MPs to fly to The Hague in solidarity with the initial “Ocampo Six” last year instead of concentrating on, for instance, legislative responses to their people’s needs in Parliament.
The MPs were safe in the knowledge that the voter would return them to Parliament on account of whether or not they were on the flight to The Hague.
It all points to the urgent need for criteria informed by what elected leaders are expected by law to do to establish whether they should be re-elected or not.
The criteria should be based on the terms of reference of elected leaders rather than the irrelevant tasks they assign themselves, such as “being close” to tribal kingpins.
An important aspect should be consideration of the instruments at the disposal of elected leaders in doing their work. MPs have two main instruments for responding to their constituents’ needs.
The first is the representation that every MP acquires upon election. If put to proper use, it would result in MPs’ developing and pushing for legislation.
The evaluation of whether the MP was effective or not in using this instrument would refer to the number of Bills an MP sponsored or contributed to in a bid to address his/her constituents’ needs. If an MP did not speak in Parliament, then they should be knocked out.
The second instrument is the Constituency Development Fund (CDF). The CDF provided all elected MPs with immediate budgets with which to respond to their people’s most pressing problems. So, use of CDF in dealing with local challenges should be part of what is used in evaluating the performance of outgoing MPs.
There is a third instrument at the disposal of a small category of MPs serving as members of the Executive.
One can only hope that Kenyans will, this time round, abandon the old standards as they choose their leaders for the next few years. If there is no change, then the cycle of failed promises that usually follows elections will continue.
Mr Muyumbu is a technical adviser on public governance at ActionAid International Kenya. gmuyumbu@yahoo.com.
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