OKECH KENDO: Will MPs yet again stand with graft suspects?

When you bring a skunk home, don't complain when it stinks. Kenya stinks because the masses are in love with political skunks.

Kenyans have blundered – too many times – nearly at every election in recent memory. It's time for voters to take responsibility for compromised choices.

The electorate has another chance to flatter corruption suspects, or to affirm voters can re-imagine Kenya. Civic consciousness, responsibility, integrity and accountability should inform national rebranding.    

Not a Kenya where suspects use the bottomers as shields against accountability. Not a country where people who own slaughterhouses that supply beef to supermarkets, are hired to run national ranches.

An online quote attributed to former Gichugu MP Martha Karua captures the paradox of the choices Kenyans make: "I have heard people say it's better a thief who steals and brings something to us. Why can't you allow that thief at home to steal your chicken, cook it, and then share with you the stew as he eats the bigger part?"

The 2022 general election is a test for the citizenry and, especially, for legislators. There is a legislative test for this Parliament, a year before about 70 per cent of its 337 elected members are evicted.

The challenge comes through legislative amendments, which Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi proposes. How MPs respond to the amendments will make it easy for the public to place them.

Will MPs defend the common good or, as is their habit, advance vested interests? Steak-holders are about to begin politicising good intentions. They will claim the amendments are intended to stop some people from running for president, governor, MP, or senator.

MPs have been outstanding as steak-holders who are beholden to vested interests, rather than as stakeholders championing the national good.

Public interest demands MPs support the proposed legislative amendments: suspending suspects from public office and denying thieves of public funds clearance to run.

Wandayi proposes amendments to the Leadership and Integrity Act 2012, and Election Act 2011. If the changes pass, the outcome would boost the war on corruption. State officers who have pleaded to charges of corruption, or other crimes related to corruption, would be suspended. Those who seek elective offices would be denied clearances to run.

The timing is great. The issues are key to seeking effective models of fighting corruption. Kenya should not be reinventing the wheel. There are replicable anti-corruption models.

A corrupt person in Japan kills himself out of shame. China executes corruption suspects. Europe and the United States jail convicted suspects. In Kenya, suspects present themselves for elections, which they compromise. They are rewarded for sharing proceeds of impunity with their victims.

Unruly appetite for handouts among the gullible causes memory loss and atrophies reasoning. The dearth of censure of the mendacious fuels anarchy.

The impending election, and the damage corruption causes to the economy, make this an opportunity for a public statement on the wobbling fight against graft.

Already, there are many suspects of corruption across the country aspiring for election, either as members of county assemblies, National Assembly or Senate, governor, or the presidency.

Electoral wards, constituencies and counties have suspects aspiring for elective offices. They are looking for human shields to protect themselves from their past. Voters know them. Their notoriety for pilferage is legendary.

Voters should muster the courage to do what is right for their wards, constituencies, counties, and Kenya.