At the time President Andrew Jackson took office in the US in 1829, it is reported that he was still very angry at his predecessor, John Quincy Adams.
Jackson viewed the federal government as full of people who were opposed to his presidency. This made him very suspicious, especially when he felt that some of his initiatives were being blocked.
As a solution, he created an official programme that dismissed federal employees hired under the previous government and replaced them with people he considered loyal to his administration. His supporters portrayed it as a necessary and overdue effort at reforming the federal government. This mass firing became official policy in his administration.
His political opponents bitterly denounced this purging policy, but were powerless to fight against it. The purge was given credence by one of President Jackson’s supporters, Senator William Marcy of New York.
In one of his speeches during a Senate debate, the senator defended the purge and said, “To the victor belong the spoils”.
Other presidents who took over office after Jackson all followed this purging policy, and doled out federal jobs to political supporters.
The end of the Spoils System was a shockingly violent act in the summer of 1881, when President James Garfield was shot by a disappointed and deranged job seeker. He died 11 weeks later.
This assassination inspired the Pendelton Reform Act, which created a bipartisan Civil Service Commission to evaluate job candidates based on merit regardless of political affiliation. This reform wrested the public service from the control of party bosses, and from then on, civil servants and federal workers were not hired or fired as a result of their political support, or lack thereof.
Senator Marcy has since been credited with coining the term Spoils System. Also called the patronage system, it is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, rewards government civil service jobs to its supporters, friends and even relatives for working towards victory, and as an incentive to keep them supporting the political party.
Fast forward to this week, the nation was entertained by Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria, who broadcasted what he termed as non-negotiable demands to be met by any aspiring presidential candidate, in return for votes from the Mt Kenya region. His basis for these demands was his assertion that 40 per cent of all the votes in the country are from the region.
In this regard, Kuria who was speaking on behalf of a group of other politicos of Mt Kenya extraction, unabashedly stated that the Deputy President position should be reserved for someone from the region. The other demands include guaranteeing that 40 per cent of all Cabinet Secretary, Principal Secretary, ambassadors and top parastatal leadership positions must be ring fenced for people from Mt Kenya.
Begs the question, are we witnessing a brazen ultimatum to the presidential aspirants to apply the Spoils System, specifically for Mt Kenya voters?
I submit that Kuria and his ilk of Mt Kenya politicos should respect the Nemo Dat Rule. And as they say in street lingua, na sio tafadhali.
This rule is also called Nemo dat quod non habet. It means no one can give what they do not have. It is a legal principle that a person who does not have ownership of goods or property does not have the ability to transfer or confer the ownership of that property or goods to someone else. It was developed by common law to protect the bona fide owners of goods or property.
Kuria and Co do not own, neither do they have a right over all the votes in the region. So pray do tell, how then can they arrogate to themselves ownership of all these votes, and more importantly, proceed to promise to transfer or confer them to the presidential aspirant who will meet their ultimatums?
This is insolence on stilettos.
Sadly, this arrogant arrogation of bloc votes is prevalent across this nation. And this is what has informed the audacity with which certain politicians negotiate for state power, procurement favours and political appointments of their relatives, financial backers and supporters at the expense of meritorious systems, Wanjiku’s rightful and appropriate development and effective delivery of services.
However, it is naïve for these Mt Kenya politicos, to believe they control the political choices for all the region’s voters, and that they can single handedly direct or redirect those preferences, depending on which aspirant meets their demands.
It is even more artless for any presidential aspirant to imagine these politicos have the power to do so regardless of the rhetoric being peddled.
I submit that the notoriety of the Spoils System of governance is what has one, normalised a small number of extremely influential families and oligarchs possessing vast resources and corporations to continually consolidate their rule in all successive governments, whether visibly or in the shadows, while exponentially expanding their capital and influence. And two, made parties to become convenient special purpose vehicles of patronage that can be set up, merged with others, split, reconstituted, regurgitated, resurrected, renamed, repackaged or flushed down the toilet, at the Patron’s whim.
Wanjiku, the upcoming 2022 elections offers us an opportunity to gradually reclaim our freedom from the curse of the Spoils System or patronage politics. Hence, carefully interrogate how each presidential or other political aspirant responds to the enormous pressures exerted by powerful patrons and oligarchs that have long adulterated our democracy.
And when your politicians purport to negotiate on your behalf, daringly remind them that they do not, have not, and will not, pass the smell test, as past experience has proven, repeatedly.
This is because patrimonial presidents and politicos are like cancer cells that systematically destroy the immune system of our nation. And when a nation’s immune system is compromised, corruption, state predation and politicised institutions increase, health, education and other services decay, justice is selective, economic growth is reduced,and the people’s survival is constantly threatened by violence.
Finally, my unsolicited advice is to the Kenyan voter. It is the slave’s willingness to attack each other, or slave on slave aggression, that makes slavery possible. Likewise, it is our willingness to attack each other based on our political allegiances that makes the Spoils System thrive, and condemns you to perpetual cyclical poverty. Stay woke.
Party government isn’t organized for efficiency, nor to serve the people. It is organized to provide jobs for the boys - Syracuse Herald
