In just about 13 months, Kenyans will go to the polls to elect the fifth president. Also on the ballot will be members of Parliament and local government leaders – governors and county assembly representatives.
As in previous elections, there will be rancour and empty rhetoric. Aspirants from the president down the ballot will traffic in both innuendo and fear. The cottage industry of pettiness and verbiage will boom once again. Money and insults and propaganda will be served in abundance. There will be more heat than light. More hot air than substantive debate.
Our political culture is founded on ethnic calculus. Ad hoc ethnic coalitions and an executive thumb on the vote tally scale invariably deliver the ultimate prize – the presidency. Often, issues play a marginal role in determining who becomes president. As you might expect, the ethnic euphoria that energises the presidential ticket is often contagious and determines down ballot races – governor, members of Parliament and the county assemblies.
Hence, our politics are unique in the sense that most of our politicians from the presidential aspirants to those running for county assembly seats seldom articulate a coherent issue platform. Not because they cannot but because issues don’t determine election outcomes. One might be led to think that there is simply no demand or appetite for issue-based politics among Kenyan voters.
Are voters inimical to issue-based politics? Is it possible that voters don’t believe that politics is the crucible for the contest of ideas for development? Is it possible that voters don’t understand that who gets what, when, how much and why is the raison d'etre of politics? Is it apathy, from years of failed broken promises and failed political leadership that has led Kenyans to put little premium on issue-based politics?
We have come a long way. But we have urgent issues that must be front and centre in the next election. Full economic recovery is stymied by a guileful pandemic. Informality chokes prosperity. The state of devolution is grave. Local government gobbles hundreds of billions of tax revenue annually with little accountability.
Devolved services such as health, agriculture, water and sanitation are in a deplorable state. Cities, towns urban centres and markets are decaying. Rural economies are comatose. National debt is piling while domestic revenue sources are stressed.
Unemployment rates rage across generations but especially scorching among youth and women. Education reform is tepid. Corruption and inefficiency in the public sector are legendry. Moreover, the cost of starting or running a business, micro or large, is prohibitive.
Our farms remain unproductive. Malnutrition and hunger stalk millions of Kenyans. For most urban Kenyans, housing is either squalid or too expensive or both. We are losing wildlife and critical habitats such as forests, wetlands and grasslands at alarming rates. Our rivers and lakes are nearly ecological dead. Hunger, urban squalor, habitat and species loss will be exacerbated by climate change.
Our problems can and must be solved by accountable government. But it starts at the ballot. Voters must demand that politicians solve problems.
