Exercise Your Vote With Circumspection

SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 2013 - 00:00 -- BY MUGAMBI KIAI

Dear Ciku,
Though he is considered a sage by many, we could at the fast-approaching elections in Kenya prove Winston Churchill wrong when he said that the “best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
Here are five suggested ways.

First, you will need to fully un-wrap all your political gifts. All politicians, like Santa Claus, come bearing numerous gifts and whispering blessedly reassuring tidings. Do not believe them at all: in this instance being a doubting Thomas is the best way to go. So when you are told that some are reformers or some are youths or some are compromise candidates you need, like the Biblical Thomas, to demand to see the nail-holes. Where is the evidence? Why, for instance, are you being assiduously sold id-age-logy and not ide-o-logy? What really is the catch?

Second, please know your candidates; especially their histories because as English novelist E.M. Forster noted, “Unless we remember, we cannot understand.” Also recall that “those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it.” The idea is not to be imprisoned by the baggage of the past or buried under the silt of history; rather it is to use history’s lessons to illuminate, enlighten and liberate. It is not, hence, to use the rear view mirror to drive, as Uhuru Kenyatta so eloquently warned; rather, it is to use the memory of the whereabouts of the pothole to avoid returning into it.

Third, please bind the candidates to performance contracts. There is now a provision in the Constitution to recall non-performing public officials. Very clear terms of reference for political candidates from the very outset would therefore be especially useful to set and lay down the boundaries of expectation at their respective doorsteps. Sure, in Kenya there seems to be no premium placed on agreements – seeing as we have the continuous reneging of political MoU’s: most recently exemplified by Uhuru Kenyatta’s retraction of a hush-hush agreement he had made to step down in favour of Musalia Mudavadi as a presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections. But, unlike in this example where Musalia was left wailing helplessly like a baby, you do have the constitutional power of recall.
Fourth, think as you vote as a Kenyan and not just as a member of a certain Kenyan tribe, class, religion, gender or sexuality. In the current context, it is very easy to assert “Kenya is my tribe” but much more difficult to act as a Kenyan.  One acts as a Kenyan through insistence for the full implementation of the whole constitution and not the slice of it that we find convenient. The Constitution is Kenyans’ pact with, among and for ourselves; by insisting on its full recognition, acceptance, promotion and implementation, we are beginning to cement our Kenyan-ess rather than tearing apart the common fabric that holds us together.

Fifth, act as a Kenyan and not as just a member of a certain Kenyan tribe, class, religion, gender or sexuality. The question to answer here is whether you are your brother’s or sister’s keeper. How will the way you behave during the forthcoming elections affect your sister or brother? When one sees the continued perpetration of organized political violence; or the publication, broadcasting and dissemination of hate speech; or the promotion of tribalism, nepotism and patronage; or the accommodation of impunity, this may be personally profitable and self-serving but how has that helped Kenya as a common and shared undertaking?
It is critical to underline this point because how we act in the next elections will have serious consequences for the country in the context of the two cases at the International Criminal Court (ICC) related to the 2007 post-election violence. The words of human rights advocate Muthoni Wanyeki are apt here for the “ICC is important for Kenya to end impunity. We are not invested in any particular outcome, only that we need to respect and protect the process – bad case or not, genuine witnesses or coached, we must trust the court to reach a determination that is just.”

And despite desperate and duplicitous attempts to assert the contrary, let it be clear that there will be grave consequences for you and I if Uhuru Kenyatta, whose running mate William Ruto is also an ICC suspect ascends to the presidency of Kenya. It is not a wonder that their ticket has been labelled the “coalition of the accused” or the”ICC referendum ticket”. Surely and certainly, it is because their ticket poses huge implications for us all in the event of a win.

For instance, should they win but continue to attend their case hearings – which now have been set to a rigorous and punishing five-day schedule from their start in April 11 – who will run the country in their perpetual absence? How dare we presume to live and thrive when we will have been politically decapitated? The miracle of immaculate conception is exclusive to the Bible: how dare we contemplate the conception and nurturing of the baby of development in Kenya when its initiators, champions and fathers will be permanently camped at The Hague even before courtship has begun? How will we address the grave ills of poverty, illness and disease, and illiteracy; how will we address unemployment and create jobs; how will we fully implement the constitution and transform national institutions; how will we conduct foreign relations and attract trade and investment; how will we market our country for increased tourism and so on in the enforced absence of the political leadership?

On the other hand, should, if they win, the Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto ticket decide to invoke the doctrine of diplomatic immunity, we will be left with the spectre of non-cooperation whose implications and consequences are too heavy and dire to contemplate. For we have seen how those who do not cooperate with the ICC suddenly become international pariahs and attain the notoriety of outlaws. And they are not only shunned by the international community; they are also actively hunted down as fugitives of the international criminal justice system. What in these hellish scenarios is desirable for our beloved motherland?

Mugambi Kiai is the Kenya Program Manager at the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA).  The views expressed in this article are entirely his own and do not reflect the views of OSIEA.