The birth of politics of issues
I witnessed the 1957, 1961 and 1963 elections, the last one gave us internal self-government that ushered in our Independence in 1963. Our independence was a revolution, thanks to the Land and Freedom Army (the Mau Mau) that carried an armed struggle against the might of the British Empire.
These elections were issue-based. I heard demands for land that the British had grabbed and stolen from us. Such clarion calls as Uhuru na Mashamba/Land and Freedom; Uhuru na Kazi/Freedom and Jobs; de-racialised education, healthcare, housing, travel; and the end of colonial segregation and apartheid. Every evil the British Empire had implicated on us was not left out. As kids, these demands were music to our ears. We had lived colonial oppression, domination, exploitation and rule.
These elections were not monetised. It is the communities that chose the leaders on the basis of their education, values and their courage to deliver on democracy and freedom. I witnessed the initial harambees/contributions for students who went to study in foreign countries, harambees for candidates who ran for these elections, and a united people determined to carry out a revolution.
I witnessed all this from the native reserve of Kitui, but I knew the struggle for independence gripped all Kenyans in the entire country. When the Kapenguria Six were freed, contributions bought them suits, cars and built them houses as national heroes.
Tales of rigged elections
Kenya African National Union (Kanu), the nationalist party won the 1963 elections. Kenya African Democratic Union (Kadu) became the opposition. These colonial elections were, in my opinion free, fair, variable, peaceful, credible and acceptable.
Although the colonial government and British settlers favoured Kadu, the nationalist wave that was Kanu was unstoppable. In 1964 the first political handshake happened. Kadu joined the Kanu government. The radical faction in Kanu was immediately fought by the conservative forces of Kanu and Kadu.
The politics of issues continued under the Kenya People’s Union (KPU). Kenyans witnessed rigged elections in the so-called Little Election of 1966, but the most blatant rigging of elections was in 1969 when the local government elections took place. All KPU candidates were disqualified on the basis that they did not fill in their forms correctly! KPU was banned in 1969, its leadership detained and Kenya became a defacto one-party state.
Rigging of elections continued under Kanu by denying nominations to candidates they deemed radical, imprisonment, and detentions. Assassinations of political leaders that started when Pio Gama Pinto was murdered in 1965 continued with Tom Mboya’s murder in 1969, and JM Kariuki’s in 1975.
When Kanu decided democracy as seen through secret ballot was “unAfrican” the queue/Mlolongo elections took place in 1988. Democracy was imprisoned in broad daylight. Those elections are best remembered by President Kibaki’s assessment of them when he told a presiding electoral officer that rigging requires intelligence.
Kibaki’s queue was the longest, but Kanu’s instructions were that he be rigged out. If these instructions had been carried out there would have been violence.
Monetised and ethnicised politics
The ethnicisation of politics in Kenya is as old as Kenya. The colonial government ruled on that basis, including other forms of division. The 1963 election had ethnic overtones of big communities and small communities, the former being the Luos and Kikuyus.
The 1992 election showed the murderous face of ethnic cleansing that reached criminal and dangerous proportions in 2008. From Independence one can see a clear trajectory of ethnicisation of politics and the consolidation of the dominance of the Big Five (Kikuyu, Kalenjin, Kamba, Luo and Luhya communities) and their divisive alliances that ensure they rule.
The other Kenyan communities are represented through the Big Five who control over 70 per cent of the vote. The ethnic barons in the Big Five have become brokers of political power, enriching themselves in the process. This trend can be traced back to 1963. This politics of division has also been the politics of corruption, monetisation and agency for foreign interests.
Quest for transformation
The consequences of this politics of division are clear for all of us to see. The resistance to the status quo described here can also be traced back to the colonial period. The quest for transformation has never been dimmed.
One sees gains that have been made since the colonial period. History records these struggles, their continuities and links to many others. It is in this sense that the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution can be seen as a continuation of this struggle.
A perusal of the 2010 Constitution tells you a story of the change we yearn for in this country. No issue of transformation is left out: Land, freedom, democracy, the whole gamut of rights, political leadership, elections, organisation of politics, security, sovereign debt, finance and institutions.
The vision of the Constitution in the preamble says we are “PROUD of our ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, and determined to live in peace and unity as one indivisible sovereign nation.” The implementation of the Constitution is as we all know is a continuing struggle for a better Kenya
August 9 election
The August 9 election will give us neither democracy nor freedom. What they give us is a golden political opportunity to continue our struggle for a just, free, independent, democratic, equitable, non-sexist, non-ethnic, non-racial, ecologically safe and prosperous country.
We have always fought for freedom from subservience to foreign interests, which still dominate, oppress, and exploit us. We must unchain and free our democracy by capturing the imagination of Kenyans that the end of the leadership of the Kenyan comprador bourgeoisie is nigh. Only then shall we dream of elections that give us democracy and freedom.
Willy Mutunga was Chief Justice & President of the Supreme Court, 2011-2016
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