South Africa’s recent elections have ended the ANC's undisrupted three decades of monopoly of the country's national political leadership. With slightly over 40 per cent of the total vote share, the ANC finds itself in uncharted territory.
Back home, the ruling United Democratic Alliance has over the past few weeks played host to the angel of discord. Hitherto latent disquiet has hit a crescendo, with members and officials openly fighting each other.
The National Elections Board, led by chairman Anthony Mwaura, openly contradicted an earlier position given by the secretary general, Cleophas Malala, over West Pokot elections.
Higher, division has assumed a largely factional angle, noticeably pitting the President and Deputy President. Differences between the two have increased in intensity over the last few weeks.
The rift is evidenced by divergent positions taken on some contentious issues, including the one-man one-vote one shilling, the role of MPs and community unity versus ethnic politics.
Preceding the intra-UDA discord was a much wider Kenya Kwanza coalition fight. The undisputed big brother, UDA, has insisted that the affiliate parties collapse and join them.
Constituent parties have thus far not been enthusiastic about the idea. Most are hesitant to go that direction, having witnessed what happened to the Jubilee Party not so long ago.
A product of collapsing of more than 10 political parties, the party is currently a pale shadow of its former self. It is a fate shared by nearly all former ruling parties and coalitions: Party of National Unity (PNU), Narc and Kanu.
The political class has variously expressed desire to tailor Kenya’s political party ecosystem to mirror that of the Western democracies, particularly the US. Suggestions have been floated on the need to ‘mainstream’ the country’s party space to have few parties.
Attempts have been made to actualise the desire. The best example in our recent history is the formation of the Jubilee Party. It is a path that a section of the Kenya Kwanza team appears keen to replicate. The question is, will Kenya Kwanza succeed where Jubilee Party failed?
Taking the example of the US, it is fair to argue that grounding the quantitative count of the major parties is the qualitative ideological foundation. There is hardly any doubt what the contours defining both the Republican and Democratic parties are. The ideological outline endures.
The case is inordinately different here in Kenya. Ours is a predominantly ‘acquisition of power ideology’. Parties are literally forced to fold up and join the dominant party for the sole purpose of acquiring power. Longevity subsequently becomes a predictable doubt.
A lesson to learn from the democratically entrenched party systems is that attaining a quantitative outline is organic, and arises, not from the forced approach, but persuasively through an issue-based ideological framework.
Even in such systems, new parties emerge based on the evolving system. In Europe for instance, environmental concerns have occasioned the emergence of green parties. In Germany, the immigration policies of Angela Merkel led to the emergence of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party.
A surge in Scottish nationalism boosted the fortunes of the Scottish National Party. In South Africa, the misfortunes afflicting the ANC are attributable to the degradation of the liberation aspirations upon which it was founded.
Any attempt to engineer our political party space must be organic. Any attempt to use force will almost certainly fail.
