• 27-year-old Social Democratic Party of Kenya renamed itself the Communist Party of Kenya
• New party to push for fair distribution of national resources, opportunities and privileges and eventually an end to exploitative capitalism
Image: COURTESY
The Social Democratic Party of Kenya has revamped and renamed itself the Communist Party of Kenya.
It is chaired by Mwandawiro Mghanga.
In the 1980s, at the heart of one political party that was brutally cracking down dissidents, Mghanga led the students' movement that symbolised resistance against the misrule that aided the Second Liberation. He survived two jail terms and torture for being a member of underground movements.
The change of name will see the 27-year-old party consolidate its communist ideology of pushing for an end to private property ownership and economic and social divides among Kenyans.
“Some opportunists like Jubilee party of Kenya, ODM, Amani Kenya and Wiper have been hiding under the social democrat banner they term as reformists. We are revolutionists who want to completely change the system and we have to set ourselves apart from such opportunists,” Mghanga said explaining the shift from SDP to CPK.
The party also had a shift in its symbols from ‘Face of the Clock’ to the ‘Hammer and Sickle’.
“The hammer and sickle symbolise the alliance between workers and the peasants just like the red colours that serve as the universal symbols of all communist parties across the world,” CPK secretary general Benedict Wachira said. He is a political and social justice activist.
Before they can achieve popular political power, Wachira said the party has embarked on winning the hearts and minds of the public by selling communist ideologies, emphasising egalitarianism and recruiting members.
“We can only win popular power by organising the masses and freeing them from the capitalist ethnic and financial political orientation that we are in now,” he said.
He added, “Ours is people before profits, nationalising and socialising of our resources by overcoming all forms of exploitation and oppression."
Currently, he said, the party has over 33,000 members. But to become a member, one has to undergo a six-month induction on ideals of socialism.
“We have no relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, but we have ties with other communist parties in the world and Africa whose ideal is land to the tiller, not these capitalist economies that are too violent against the poor,” the party's mass mobilisation official Gacheke Gachihi said.
The social justice crusader said their party strives to "have a fair and just distribution of national resources, opportunities and social privileges within society".
“Kenya is a rich country with plenty of resources. No Kenyan deserves to be living in slums, whereas some select few are swimming in immoral wealth accrued from the sweat of the majority,” Mghanga said. He said CPK will fight against neoliberalism and capitalism by providing alternative economic and development policies based on socialism.