Is politics for those with bottomless pockets?

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By DOMINIC WAMUGUNDA
Posted  Saturday, July 14  2012 at  18:04

We are a whole eight months from the declared date of the General Election but there is no denying that campaigns for the presidential position are in full gear.

What amazes me when I look at the colour and pomp that goes with some of these activities is the amount of financial resources that go into putting them together and, more often than not, by the very same people over and over again.

I am convinced that the rest of us ordinary Kenyans are caught in a vicious cycle that will take a very long time to get out of.

A paragraph in Miguna Miguna’s book caught my eye the other day. It went something like this:

“Ruto in turn was appointed minister for Agriculture, a portfolio Raila claimed Ruto himself had chosen. With about 50 parastatals and a budget more than ten times that of the office of the Prime Minister, the ministry of Agriculture had heft.

“And Ruto who had a reputation as a man with a sharp nose for making money, must have known that the ministry of Agriculture was where ‘excess fat’ was; to put it in Kenyan business parlance.”

Large sums

Whether this is actually the way things went or not, for me this approach to occupying public offices sums up a lot of things.

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It not only serves as an explanation as to where the large sums of money that is spent in some political activities comes from but also points to the reason why some people were willing to kill and displace fellow Kenyans in order to get into power.

In the process, political leadership is reduced to a game of only those who have money regardless of its source.

Often we have heard people talking about drug trafficking and the colossal amounts of money that such trade generates.

It is quite possible that some of the people in this business do actually spend this money to buy positions of power in order that they may in turn remain protected from the law.

Indeed, electoral politics in Kenya has become a game for the few who have large amounts of money which they can squander without feeling the pinch because they really did not sweat for it. In the meantime the concept of leadership has been reduced to mean the perpetuation of personal interests of a few without due regard for the good of all.

Will the genuine leaders who would lead this country to the level of a truly civilised society and who do not have this kind of money ever get a chance?

Dr Wamugunda is dean of students and sociology lecturer at the University of Nairobi. wamugundaw@uonbi.ac.ke