Sunday, January 20, 2013

Polls expose our soft political underbelly



Angry Kondele youth deface the poster of an aspirant to protest the result of Kisumu County Gubernatorial position and the parliamentary seat  on January 20, 2013. PHOTO/TOM OTIENO
By EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA gmayaka@ke.nationmedia.com AND JULIUS SIGEI jsigei@ke.nationmedia.com  ( email the author)

Posted  Friday, May 28  9999 at  23:30
In Summary
  • A high number of outgoing Members of Parliament endorsed in shambolic primaries despite the complaints about their greed.
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The just concluded party primaries exposed the disturbing reality that Kenyan politics is caught in a time warp, more than two decades since return of multi-party democracy.
In a largely shambolic poll in which Kenyans endorsed an unprecedented high number of outgoing MPs despite the complaints about their greed, ethnicity ruled the roost, and aspirants had to banter to the favour of tribal lords to obtain nominations.
In an emphatic endorsement of ethnic-based politics, Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s Cord Coalition did not hold primaries in Central Kenya, the backyard of his key opponent, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta of Jubileee.
Mr Kenyatta’s party also took a similar pattern by not presenting candidates for election in Luo Nyanza.
The nominations also exposed the spectacular incompetence of political parties, raising the question as to whether IEBC, should really be a spectator in such a crucial process.
On Friday, Roads minister Franklin Bett, who is the chairman of the ODM elections board said that in future the IEBC should conduct party primaries.
“The lesson I have learnt is that parties do not have the human and material capacity to conduct primaries,” he admitted.
So messy were the primaries that some areas were yet to know nominees for various seats, three days after the deadline.
This was the case in the Kisumu and Siaya governor’s seats, and the Gem, Muhoroni, Nyando parliamentary seats.
What’s more, during the campaigns critical issues such as healthcare, education, water, expansion of roads and trade were pushed to the periphery.
The culture of party hopping reared its ugly head with politicians breaking the very laws they enacted barely two months ago blocking defections after January 18.
Blamed IEBC
Prof Karuti Kanyinga of the University of Nairobi put the blame of the debacle on the IEBC and the Registrar of the Political Parties which he accused of incompetence which set the pace for the old culture to pollute the political environment.
“The process towards electing our next leaders did not begin with clear institutionalisation of political parties.”
He traced the chaotic exercise to as early as June last year when the RPP tolerated politicians who were registering new parties while still members of those that sponsored them to Parliament.
“There is a growing pool of evidence that the first-past-post system is injurious to divided societies like Kenya,” he said, adding proportional representation or the list system was gaining currency in other democracies.
Besides ethnicity, the nominations served as avenues to entrench dynasties, with influential families herding two or three members to the ballot and unashamedly putting up a spirited fight to bulldoze them through.
As we were writing this, emotions were running high in Kisumu and Siaya counties in resistance against what residents saw as an attempt by powerful forces to impose Mr Odinga’s brother, Dr Oburu Oginga and his sister Ruth Odinga as candidates for governor in the two counties.
In Mombasa, it was a family affair when assistant minister Ramadhan Kajembe sought nomination for Senate while his son, Seif, and son-in-law Badi Twalib fought for the ODM ticket in Jomvu constituency. Father and son secured the nominations.
In Taita Taveta both assistant minister Calist Mwatela and his wife, former Central Bank deputy governor lost in the primaries.
And in the North Rift, Industrialisation minister Henry Kosgey won ODM ticket for Nandi Senate while his son clinched the United Republican flag for Emgwen constituency in the same county.
Elsewhere in Narok, former Internal Security minister Julius Sunkuli is headed for a titanic battle for the Senate seat with his younger brother Andrew Leteipa.
They will fight it out with former Narok South MP Stephen ole Ntutu, whose younger brother Patrick also clinched the Narok West URP ticket.
The elder Sunkuli’s wife Janet Naserian lost in her bid to fly the ODM mast in Kilgoris.
Still in Narok, Heritage minister William Ole Ntimama got a direct ticket from ODM to defend his Narok seat while his daughter Lydia Masikonte, will be the party’s flag bearer for the Women Representative seat.
But the primaries were also marked by resolve by voters to reject candidates seen to be backed by powerful quarters, which had tried to bulldoze them through the primaries.
In President Kibaki’s Othaya backyard, voters rejected lawyer Gichuki Mugambi who had been endorsed and campaigned for by members of the first family such as Jimmy and Judy Kibaki, and instead handed the ticket to influential businesswoman Mary Wambui.
The election was also an indictment of lethargy of the middle class in electoral politics.
Away from holding highly charged debates in the social media, often heavily tribally nuanced, they have no presence in political parties where issues of life and death are determined.
There is evidence that majority of them do not belong to political parties, most of which are built around tribal demi-gods and the country club types.
An argument has been made that had the middle-class participated in the party primaries, election in key counties such as Nairobi would have been different.
The nominations also painted a picture of a society that had left key decisions to groups vulnerable to political manipulation such as the low-incomes residents of informal settlements.
This then creates a scenario in which a number of voters who shun primaries, are confronted with reality of voting for candidates who have been chosen for them by others, and the cycle of whining continues.
Billed by analysts as the most expensive election in the country’s history, aspirants, some of whom had left their jobs to try their hand in politics, saw their investment go up in smoke as voters protested against the sham elections.
Yet despite the national anger that trailed the conduct of the 10th Parliament touching on clandestine self-enrichment schemes in utter contempt for public opinion, Kenyans nominated more than 80 per cent of the outgoing MPs.

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