NASA presidential running mate Kalonzo Musyoka son Kennedy’s
nomination to the East African Legislative Assembly will be controversial.
Many observers will read nepotism into this selection and
assume that a Deputy President Kalonzo would continue the practice if he enters
office, all the way from the Cabinet to the bureaucracy, the disciplined forces
and the state corporation sector.
Among the first questions that critics of this patently
unwise move will ask is whether Kennedy was the most qualified and deserving of
Wiper Party members for the EALA job.
True, other politically preeminent families have nominated
their relatives to the EALA and elsewhere, but it is time this retrograde practice
was stopped.
The EALA is not taken seriously by the broad public across
the East African Community, but its legislation has impacts across borders in
our region and it would be a good thing to appoint its members from among persons
whose credentials go far beyond accidents of birth.
Appointments by dint of DNA ought to be a thing of the past.
