The season of political deceit and foolery is here with us again.
Politicians will come up with policies that even they can neither understand nor explain to the public to woo gullible voters to vote for them.
But for the first time in our presidential election, there seems to be a shift from ethnic mobilisation to economic ideology-based competition.
The bottom-up economic model being fronted by Deputy President William Ruto and his allies seems to have gained traction in shaping political debate in the main and social media.
But what is this bottom-up approach that seems to have rubbed some people the wrong way?
To understand it, it is imperative one understands what devolution is and what it was designed to achieve.
Devolution as envisioned in the 2010 Constitution was a transfer of power and resources to lower units of government, the counties.
This was a second attempt after the federal system that created six distinct regions (jimbos) in post-Independence Kenya.
This had been meant to spur economic growth and development across Kenya. However, this did not last long as politics quickly got in the way and Kenya reverted to a central system of government in which all resources were controlled from the top.
The Constitution advocates equitable distribution of national resources to the counties to foster economic growth and development and to decentralise power and other functions.
The counties have created new job and investment opportunities. There has also been the inclusion of marginalised communities, who now have a say in governance and development through their counties.
Most importantly is direct public participation.
Citizens at the grassroots get a chance to directly engage with their leaders and hold them accountable. As such, the bottom-up approach being espoused by the Ruto camp is not something new. It has been there.
The model being propagated by Ruto and his allies is the brainchild of David Ndii, the public intellectual for hire. He was a Nasa strategist and an harsh critic of the DP and the Jubilee government.
He is now the DP’s economic adviser.
The bottom-up model lacks an accompanying clear and distinct lucidity on its interpretation. This was evidenced at a political talk show where one of its proponents, a renowned lawyer and MP mumbled when asked to explain what the ideology is all about.
The question then is this: if those expected to implement the policy do not understand it, how will the ordinary citizen make an informed decision on it?
While this model might sound good on paper, it for sure is not fit for a country and a continent that has a huge inequality gap.
This ideology has been lifted from the Biden administration. However, it has not been tailored to fit the Kenyan situation.
From independence, the US developed basic public investments, which included community development, infrastructure, healthcare, education, research, safe communities and safety nets.
BPIs coupled with good labour laws of equal pay for equal work and stipulation of a minimum wage to some extent create an equal system that forms a strong foundation for this economic model.
For it to work, there must be a significant flow of money into the economy, including the grassroots. The more money pumped into the economy, the more it creates jobs, tax revenue and a bigger economy.
However, in a country with most of its population living below the poverty level, it would be a challenge to adopt this model.
How will we be able to achieve this if we failed to fully implement stock of devolution before we leapfrog to this model?
It appears to me that we are concerned more with ideologies rather than improving the lives of the voters. These are some of the pertinent questions that the electorate needs to ask the proponents of this model.
But where will they get the answers if the proponents themselves cannot make head or taila of it? Why would someone sell to you an idea they know nothing about?
If this is not the highest order of political conmanship, then I do not know what is.
What the legislators displayed was unmatched ignorance and buffoonery that left their boss, who turns out to be the DP, to salvage the sinking ship.
He used social media to state that Kenya has been using the trickle-down model for years, but it has not been effective, thus, the need for a change.
DP Ruto said trickle-down failed because it was used to aid patronage and cronyism, breeding cartels and monopolies that benefit the few individuals who had connections.
He further added that his model is anchored in deliberately promoting investments and financial instruments targeting the millions who are unemployed, hustler enterprises/farmer groups.
Whether the public buys this idea or not is now up to them. The smoke has already been seen; will you wait for the fire?
I may not be an economist but as a political economist, this idea needs to be triangulated to the economic lives of the people.
Al Hajj Amin is a university lecturer
(Edited by V. Graham)
