If you have a friend who won a parliamentary seat in last year’s election, when you next meet him, ask him this question: “How are you coping with all that debt?”
If he is really your friend and willing to be honest with you, then the answer will be along the lines of, “This has been the most expensive victory I have ever won”.
For not only does all politics in Kenya revolve around money; but even the most carefully planned campaigns always run out of money at some point towards the end, and then all of a sudden, the candidate has to beg, borrow or steal to see the campaign through to the end.
For there is a well-established five-year cycle when it comes to Kenyan politics: in the early months after an election, the successful candidates after being sworn in, are busy gathering unto themselves the many benefits of being an MP or a senator:
They buy new cars (almost always giant SUVs). They take out mortgages for a house somewhere quiet and leafy and very far from the public transport routes; a place where no casual constituent can just drop by on a whim.
And they canvass to get assignments to what the Kenyan media usually refers to as “lucrative committees” – about which I will say no more.
Once thus settled, our elected representatives then go about setting their finances in order: keeping up the mortgage payments; replenishing the personal bank accounts; and generally moving slowly out of the red.
But this is never a straightforward process.
The previous campaigns will have led to “mheshimiwa” making all kinds of extravagant promises to key supporters as well as locally influential individuals.
In one case he will have promised a village church a new roof. In another he will have undertaken to sponsor someone’s child to some college or other. Football teams that won some local football competitions during the campaign may also be waiting for the new uniforms and football boots that had been promised.
The point here is that not all these promises can be fulfilled through allocations from the National Government Constituencies Development Fund. To a surprising degree, promises often have to be kept by an outlay of money taken out of ‘mheshimiwa’s’ pocket.
Especially when it comes to those many small but persistent expenses: the many funerals on weekends, in those parts of the country where failure by an elected leader to actively participate in giving the deceased “a decent sendoff” is never forgiven; the unscheduled requests for an intervention over a monstrous medical bill; and so on. The list is virtually endless given that most constituencies are rural, and most Kenyans living in our rural areas are poor.
And herein lies the real tragedy in all this.
When we speak of corruption – and specifically of “official corruption” – as one of the principal factors that hold the country back, we are merely focusing on the outward manifestation of a much deeper problem.
This deeper problem is that voters do not see the general election as an opportunity to select a competent legislator to go forth and represent their interests in parliament.
Rather they see the election as an opportunity to “eat” – to receive some kind of bribe in exchange for their votes. For all intents and purposes, the average Kenyan voter demands to be bribed and does not care where the money for this bribe comes from.
In my experience, Kenya has no shortage of idealistic young men and women. And many of these not only have very impressive credentials but also – like their peers in the more advanced nations – have a deep desire to make their mark in public life.
But they have to get elected first. And it is this electoral process that invariably proves to be the grave of their lofty ideals.
For even those who have benefitted conspicuously from the young aspirant’s community projects, will very often insist that they must “eat something” if they are to be relied on to vote for this noble idealist.
By the end of the campaign, this idealist will have been transformed into a bitter cynic, weighed down by debt and focused only on “reaping where he has sowed”.
